Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust, was a Roman historian, politician, and novus homo from a provincial plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and was a popularis, an opponent of the old Roman aristocracy, throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Catiline's War, The Jugurthine War, and the Historiesare still extant. Sallust was primarily...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionHistorian
light quality obscurity
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.]
powerful light merit
Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.
passion light shadow
Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light
light evil darkness
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.
believe taken light
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.
friendship true-friend desire
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.]
wicked
By the wicked the good conduct of others is always dreaded.
desire few majority men satisfied
Few men desire liberty; the majority are satisfied with a just master.
glorious glory goes possession
The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.
man
Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.
To like and dislike the same things, this is what makes a solid friendship.
man proverbs
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
himself proper seeks seems serious sets task work
He only seems to me to live, and to make proper use of life, who sets himself some serious work to do, and seeks the credit of a task well and skillfully performed.
grief make-happy joy
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.