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
hatred angry
He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing.
powerful light merit
Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.
government precedent
Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.
liberty dignity higher
The higher your station, the less your liberty.
fall community pieces
Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord.
passion light shadow
Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light
feelings tears sincerity
Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate.
country sweet 4th-of-july
It is sweet to surve one country by deeds, and it is not absurd to surve her by words.
wise common goodness
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.
states honorable despised
Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.
essence space soul
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.
philosophy practice soul
One may call the world a myth , in which bodies and things are visible, but souls and minds hidden. Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the Gods to all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand, and lack of zeal in the good, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practice philosophy.
class elements world
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.
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.