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Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

Sallust

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

Empire Greatness Harmony Small State
When the prizes fall to the lot of the wicked, you will not find many who are virtuous for virtue’s sake.
SALLUST

Fall Finding Prize Virtue Yourself
Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.
SALLUST

Arrogance Art Change Creation Easy Fortune Justice Original Place Preserve
Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.
SALLUST

Beyond Despise Honor Service State Word
Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.
SALLUST

Advice Ancestor Help Light Powerful
The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.
SALLUST

Friendship Identity Nature
Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate.
SALLUST

Evaporate Feeling General Move Tears Weakness Word
Prosperity tries the souls even of the wise.
SALLUST

Prosperity Soul Try Wisdom
Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.
SALLUST

Fame Light Passion Shadow Stand
It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are not necessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.
SALLUST

Coward Difficult Easy Enough Hands Necessary War Willing
Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all – they produced an oyster.
SALLUST

Goodness Pearl Production
The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.
SALLUST

Ancestor Bad Glory Goodness Light Obscurity Quality
Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.
SALLUST

Body Cosmos Down Imitation Move On Soul Water
It is better to use fair means and fail, than foul and conquer.
SALLUST

Better Conquer Failure Right Rule Win
To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.
SALLUST

Deep Man Poor Power Seek
One can ever assume to be what he is not, and to conceal what he is.
SALLUST

Assume Conceal Himself

Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

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Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

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Popular Authors

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