Sallust Quotes

29 Sourced Quotes

All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes.

Sallust
Yet many human beings, resigned to sensuality and indolence, uninstructed and unimproved, have passed through life like travelers in a strange country.

Sallust
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.

Sallust
The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of mortals.

Sallust
Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.

Sallust
It becomes all men, Senators, who deliberate on dubious matters, to be influenced neither by hatred, affection, anger, nor pity.

Sallust
For to like the same things and to dislike the same things, only this is a strong friendship.

Sallust
In truth, prosperity tries the souls even of the wise.

Sallust
Covetous of others' possessions, he [Catiline] was prodigal of his own.

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

Sallust
Few men desire freedom, the greater part desire just masters.

Sallust
On behalf of their country, their children, their altars, and their hearths.

Sallust
A city for sale and soon to perish if it finds a buyer!

Sallust
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.

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

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

Sallust
As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Sallust
No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.

Sallust
Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.

Sallust
Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy?

Sallust
I myself, however, when a young man, was at first led by inclination, like most others, to engage in political affairs; but in that pursuit many circumstances were unfavorable to me; for, instead of modesty, temperance, and integrity, there prevailed shamelessness, corruption, and rapacity.

Sallust
Thus in the highest position there is the least freedom of action.

Sallust
But experience has shown that to be true which Appius says in his verses, that every man is the architect of his own fortune.

Sallust
To stir up undisputed matters seemed a great reward in itself.

Sallust
Greedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own.

Sallust