Time & Perspective Quote by Sallust

Sallust is doing something slyly political here: he turns a psychological truism into an indictment of a ruling class. “No mortal man” sounds like universal wisdom, but the target is Roman power-brokers who mistook appetite for destiny. In one clean line, he collapses the heroic self-image of the late Republic into a more embarrassing story: you can chase what you want, or what will actually keep you standing, but you don’t get to pretend they’re the same project.

The sentence works because of its loaded pairings. “Passions” isn’t romantic feeling; it’s libido, rage, greed, status hunger - the volatile drives Roman moralists saw as corrosive to civic life. “Best interests” isn’t merely personal prudence either. In Sallust’s world, self-interest is braided with public stability; when elites indulge private cravings, the state pays the bill. The line’s cold emphasis on “served” sharpens the critique: passions demand worship, not negotiation. You don’t manage them; you become their staff.

Context matters. Sallust wrote in the aftermath of civil wars, amid the rot of patronage, bribery, and strongmen selling themselves as saviors. His histories (especially the Catiline and Jugurth narratives) stage politics as a moral drama where vice is not a private quirk but a strategic force. The subtext is fatalistic but tactical: if you want to understand Rome’s collapse, stop looking for grand ideals and start tracking the moments when desire quietly overruled judgment.