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
riches virtue glory
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.]
done deliberate
Deliberate before you begin; but, having carefully done so, execute with vigour.
likes-and-dislikes likes bonds-of-friendship
To have the same likes and dislikes, therein consists the firmest bond of friendship.
assuming
One can ever assume to be what he is not, and to conceal what he is.
littles enough
Enough words, little wisdom. [Lat., Satis eloquentiae sapientiae parum.]
wicked
By the wicked the good conduct of others is always dreaded.
money honor
There were few who preferred honor to money.
beauty shining age
The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.
rose grows
Everything that rises sets, and everything that grows, grows old.
success wise prayer
Not by vows nor by womanish prayers is the help of the gods obtained; success comes through vigilance, energy, wise counsel.
practice virtue natural
In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural.
oysters culture poor
Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.
grief men hardship
For men who had easily endured hardship, danger and difficult uncertainty, leisure and riches, though in some ways desirable, proved burdensome and a source of grief.
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.