Time & Perspective Quote by Sallust

The line lands like a Roman marching order: pause, then move. Sallust isn’t offering a gentle self-help bromide; he’s prescribing statecraft for a republic he believed was rotting from the inside out. As a historian of late Republican crisis, he watched ambition, faction, and spectacle outrun judgment. “Before you act, consider” is the thin seam of discipline meant to hold a fraying political culture together.

The clever turn is the second clause: “when you have considered, tis fully time to act.” It rejects the other pathology of unstable governments - endless debate as camouflage for cowardice or self-interest. Sallust’s subtext is that deliberation is not a substitute for virtue. Think hard, then commit. If you’re still “considering” after the facts are in, you’re not prudent; you’re stalling.

Context matters because Sallust writes with a prosecutor’s bitterness. His histories (Catiline, Jugurtha) treat moral decline as an engine of events: greed, envy, and the hunger for power distort public decision-making. Against that backdrop, the quote functions as both personal ethic and civic standard. Leaders should deliberate so they’re not dragged by impulse, bribery, or crowd-pleasing theater. But once deliberation is done, they must act to prevent the vacuum where demagogues thrive.

Rhetorically, it works through symmetry and tempo: the calm of “consider” followed by the snap of “fully time.” It’s prudence without paralysis - a rare middle note in an age that rewarded extremes.