The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.
SALLUSTThe renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.
SALLUSTEverything that rises sets, and everything that grows, grows old.
SALLUSTBy union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.
SALLUSTSovereignty 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.
SALLUSTIt is better to use fair means and fail, than foul and conquer.
SALLUSTThe very life which we enjoy is short.
SALLUSTIt is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.
SALLUSTEvery bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.
SALLUSTA good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
SALLUSTNo mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.
SALLUSTEverything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?
SALLUSTGreedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own
SALLUSTIt 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.
SALLUSTThe glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal.
SALLUSTThe glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.
SALLUSTWhen the prizes fall to the lot of the wicked, you will not find many who are virtuous for virtue’s sake.
SALLUST