Top 100 Edward Gibbon Quotes
#1. The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.
Edward Gibbon
#2. History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.
Edward Gibbon
#4. We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.
Edward Gibbon
#5. But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
Edward Gibbon
#6. The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for "The
Edward Gibbon
#7. The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.
Edward Gibbon
#8. The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province [Britain] was again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean.
Edward Gibbon
#9. [The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Edward Gibbon
#10. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.
Edward Gibbon
#11. I make it a point never to argue with people for whose opinion I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
#12. To a lover of books the shops and sales in London present irresistible temptations.
Edward Gibbon
#13. [Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
Edward Gibbon
#14. Another d-mn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?
Edward Gibbon
#15. Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
Edward Gibbon
#16. I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
#17. Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
Edward Gibbon
#18. [We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.
Edward Gibbon
#19. [The] penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
Edward Gibbon
#20. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
Edward Gibbon
#21. There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
Edward Gibbon
#22. [The monks'] minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy ...
Edward Gibbon
#23. In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.
Edward Gibbon
#24. Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
Edward Gibbon
#25. The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history
Edward Gibbon
#26. But his days were shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost glory.
Edward Gibbon
#27. It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
Edward Gibbon
#28. The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
Edward Gibbon
#29. It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.
Edward Gibbon
#30. Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind.
Edward Gibbon
#31. Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
Edward Gibbon
#32. When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter.
Edward Gibbon
#33. I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
Edward Gibbon
#34. The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.
Edward Gibbon
#35. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
Edward Gibbon
#36. The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience.
Edward Gibbon
#37. A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
Edward Gibbon
#38. The vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.
Edward Gibbon
#39. There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.
Edward Gibbon
#40. The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
Edward Gibbon
#41. The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind ...
Edward Gibbon
#42. If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.
Edward Gibbon
#43. Bad roads and indifferent inns, ... the continual converse one is obliged to have with the vilest part of mankind - innkeepers, post-masters, and custom house officers.
Edward Gibbon
#44. The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.
Edward Gibbon
#45. But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
Edward Gibbon
#47. Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre.
Edward Gibbon
#48. But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.
Edward Gibbon
#49. The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon
#50. [Whole] generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.
Edward Gibbon
#51. The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war;
Edward Gibbon
#52. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
Edward Gibbon
#53. At that time the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.
Edward Gibbon
#54. The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.
Edward Gibbon
#55. Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life ...
Edward Gibbon
#56. We improve ourselves by victory over our self. There must be contests, and you must win.
Edward Gibbon
#57. The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians.
Edward Gibbon
#58. Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life.
Edward Gibbon
#59. If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
Edward Gibbon
#60. The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.
Edward Gibbon
#61. The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents ...
Edward Gibbon
#62. [But] the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature.
Edward Gibbon
#63. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.
Edward Gibbon
#64. Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence.
Edward Gibbon
#65. A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon
#66. The difference of language, dress, and manners ... severs and alienates the nations of the globe.
Edward Gibbon
#67. On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.
Edward Gibbon
#68. If this Punic war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.
Edward Gibbon
#69. The vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
Edward Gibbon
#70. Recluse fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to communicate ...
Edward Gibbon
#71. Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and abstemious diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the impure desires of the flesh.
Edward Gibbon
#72. A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.
Edward Gibbon
#73. It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
Edward Gibbon
#74. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.
Edward Gibbon
#75. Greek is doubtless the most perfect [language] that has been contrived by the art of man.
Edward Gibbon
#76. History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
Edward Gibbon
#77. While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.
Edward Gibbon
#78. As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.
Edward Gibbon
#79. A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
Edward Gibbon
#81. The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority.
Edward Gibbon
#82. In everyage and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, ofthetwosexes, hasusurped thepowers ofthe state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.
Edward Gibbon
#83. In the most rigorous [Roman] laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner.
Edward Gibbon
#84. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times ...
Edward Gibbon
#85. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.
Edward Gibbon
#86. I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.
Edward Gibbon
#87. [Instead] of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.
Edward Gibbon
#88. The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
Edward Gibbon
#89. [Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
Edward Gibbon
#90. It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.
Edward Gibbon
#91. In reality, Rome had grown too big for lots of people to handle its vast affairs any longer by committee.
Edward Gibbon
#92. A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.
Edward Gibbon
#93. Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
Edward Gibbon
#94. Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
Edward Gibbon
#95. [Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength ...
Edward Gibbon
#96. If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
Edward Gibbon
#97. In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
Edward Gibbon
#98. The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.
Edward Gibbon
#99. Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
Edward Gibbon
#100. My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
Edward Gibbon
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