Top 117 Quotes & Sayings by Sallust - Page 2

The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

While the body is young and fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its highest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce mind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again, while the soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the engineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being touched by any one).

All this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods without any act of will or labor. As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e.g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans , who argue that what is divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.

The Romans assisted their allies and friends, and acquired friendships by giving rather than receiving kindness. [Lat., Sociis atque amicis auxilia portabant Romani, magisque dandis quam accipiundis beneficiis amicitias parabant.]

No one has become immortal by sloth; nor has any parent prayed that his children should live forever; but rather that they should lead an honorable and upright life. [Lat., Ignavia nemo immortalis factus: neque quisquam parens liberis, uti aeterni forent, optavit; magis, uti boni honestique vitam exigerent.]

Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.

For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires.

Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the Gods subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only to those who can understand.

The glory of wealth and of beauty is fleeting and frail; virtue is illustrious and everlasting.

The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal. Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies. Neither are they separate from the first cause nor from one another, just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from the soul.

Before you act consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act.

It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.

Among intellectual pursuits, one of the most useful is the recording of past events.

Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.

If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.

Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Of the cosmic Gods some make the world be, others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized.

To have the same desires and the same aversion is assuredly a firm bond of friendship.

But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle. [Lat., Sed profecto Fortuna in omni re dominatur; ea res cunctas ex lubidine magis, quam ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque.]

To desire the same things and to reject the same things, constitutes true friendship. [Lat., Idem velle et idem nolle ea demum firma amicitia est.]

In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.

Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.

If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.

Small endeavours obtain strength by unity of action: the most powerful are broken down by discord.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

The very life which we enjoy is short. [Lat., Vita ipsa qua fruimur brevis est.]

By the wicked the good conduct of others is always dreaded.

To like and dislike the same things that is indeed true friendship.

It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.

Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices.

All men who would surpass the other animals should do their best not to pass through life silently like the beasts whom nature made prone, obedient to their bellies.

To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to rampart.

It is not only spirits who punish the evil, the soul brings itself to judgment: and also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain everything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If punishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear and have no virtue.

Enough words, little wisdom. [Lat., Satis eloquentiae sapientiae parum.]

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.

Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light

Greedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own

But few prize honour more than money.

The fact that the stars predict high or low rank for the father of the person whose horoscope is taken, teaches that they do not always make things happen but sometimes only indicate things. For how could things which preceded the birth depend upon the birth?

When the prizes fall to the lot of the wicked, you will not find many who are virtuous for virtue's sake.

Souls are punished when they have gone forth from the body, some wandering among us, some going to hot or cold places of the earth, some harassed by spirits. Under all circumstances they suffer with the irrational part of their nature, with which they also sinned. For its sake there subsists that shadowy body which is seen about graves, especially the graves of evil livers.

That power of the Gods which orders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen contrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this reason that the Goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities; for every city consists of elements which are not uniform.

To have the same likes and dislikes, therein consists the firmest bond of friendship.

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

Fortune rules in all things, and advances and depresses things more out of her own will than right and justice.

The man who is roused neither by glory nor by danger it is in vain to exhort; terror closes the ears of the mind. [Lat., Quem neque gloria neque pericula excitant, nequidquam hortere; timor animi auribus officit.]

The glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal. [Lat., Divitarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis; virtus clara aeternaque habetur.]

It is sweet to surve one country by deeds, and it is not absurd to surve her by words.

A small state increases by concord; the greatest falls gradually to ruin by dissension.

Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?

Again, if the world is destroyed, it must needs either be destroyed according to nature or against nature. Against nature is impossible, for that which is against nature is not stronger than nature. If according to nature, there must be another nature which changes the nature of the world: which does not appear.

The Gods being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but only comes about by absence of light.

But at power or wealth, for the sake of which wars, and all kinds of strife, arise among mankind, we do not aim; we desire only our liberty, which no honorable man relinquishes but with his life.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity. [Lat., Majorum gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala in occulto patitur.]