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
desire few majority men satisfied
Few men desire liberty; the majority are satisfied with a just master.
men evil soul
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.
men soul body
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.
fear men mind
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.]
men poorest seeking
To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.
pride men animal
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.
men politics economy
The poorest of men are the most useful to those seeking power.
men suffering underestimate
No man underestimates the wrongs he suffers; many take them more seriously than is right.
men evil good-man
A good man prefers to suffer rather than overcome injustice with evil.
war men honorable-man
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.
ambition men tongue
Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.
mean men evil
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
song fate men
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.
men good-man wicked
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.