Top 100 Gibbon Edward Quotes
#1. If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [of gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind (Chapter 65,p. 68)
Edward Gibbon
#2. Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain persuasion that those who have no dependence except on their favor will have no attachment except to the person of their benefactor.
Edward Gibbon
#3. It was much less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect the observance of the moral duties, than to despise the censures and authority of their bishops.
Edward Gibbon
#4. In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
Edward Gibbon
#5. The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
Edward Gibbon
#6. 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
#7. 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
#8. In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.
Edward Gibbon
#9. The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
Edward Gibbon
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history
Edward Gibbon
#13. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
#14. The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
Edward Gibbon
#15. [Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.
Edward Gibbon
#16. Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Edward Gibbon
#17. Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
Edward Gibbon
#18. 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
#19. Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates who reigned in the capital of the East was rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria.
Edward Gibbon
#20. [The monks'] minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy ...
Edward Gibbon
#21. The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the returns of filial piety.
Edward Gibbon
#22. [Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
Edward Gibbon
#23. As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern deliberation.
Edward Gibbon
#24. There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
Edward Gibbon
#25. Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
Edward Gibbon
#26. Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.
Edward Gibbon
#27. History, in fact, is no more than a list of the crimes of humanity, human follies and accidents
Edward Gibbon
#28. The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience.
Edward Gibbon
#29. 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
#30. A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
Edward Gibbon
#31. 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
#32. When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.
Edward Gibbon
#33. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.
Edward Gibbon
#34. I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
Edward Gibbon
#35. [A] military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the duty of obedience.
Edward Gibbon
#36. The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
Edward Gibbon
#37. But a wild democracy ... too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
Edward Gibbon
#38. [It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
Edward Gibbon
#39. But [the Arabs'] friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia.
Edward Gibbon
#40. It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
Edward Gibbon
#41. Edward Gibbon said that in ancient Rome all religions were to the people equally true, to the philosophers equally false, and to the government equally useful.
Philip Yancey
#42. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.
Edward Gibbon
#43. 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
#44. Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
Edward Gibbon
#45. To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.
Edward Gibbon
#46. The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.
Edward Gibbon
#47. So natural to man is the practice of violence that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.
Edward Gibbon
#48. Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
Edward Gibbon
#49. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.
Edward Gibbon
#51. The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for "The
Edward Gibbon
#52. Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
Edward Gibbon
#53. 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
#54. [The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Edward Gibbon
#55. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities, which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
Edward Gibbon
#56. 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
#57. Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era's declension as a place where bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
Edward Gibbon
#58. As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards; full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.
Edward Gibbon
#59. Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
Edward Gibbon
#60. 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
#61. The love of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of impunity.
Edward Gibbon
#62. It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable ...
Edward Gibbon
#63. The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of premature and perpetual decay.
Edward Gibbon
#64. I make it a point never to argue with people for whose opinion I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
#65. 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
#66. So long as mankind shall continue to lavish more praise upon its destroyers than upon its benefactors war shall remain the chief pursuit of ambitious minds.
Edward Gibbon
#67. Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?
Elizabeth Gilbert
#68. Philosophy alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy), that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.
Edward Gibbon
#69. We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.
Edward Gibbon
#71. 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
#72. The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation
Edward Gibbon
#73. The mixture of Sarmatic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race.
Edward Gibbon
#74. The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.
Edward Gibbon
#75. [The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny ...
Edward Gibbon
#76. The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
Edward Gibbon
#77. [The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.
Edward Gibbon
#78. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
Edward Gibbon
#79. [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
#80. In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.
Edward Gibbon
#81. [We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.
Edward Gibbon
#82. Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
Edward Gibbon
#83. [The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.
Edward Gibbon
#84. I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
#85. Both Moscow and [Kiev], the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes [by the Tartars]; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on the character of the Russians.
Edward Gibbon
#86. The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness
Edward Gibbon
#87. 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
#88. The history of empires is the history of human misery.
Edward Gibbon
#89. Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity.
Edward Gibbon
#90. A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim.
Edward Gibbon
#91. But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
Edward Gibbon
#92. Feeble and timid minds ... consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.
Edward Gibbon
#93. Fear has been the original parent of superstition, every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of invisible enemies
Edward Gibbon
#94. Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
Edward Gibbon
#95. The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance, by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth.
Edward Gibbon
#96. Another d-mn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?
Edward Gibbon
#97. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.
Edward Gibbon
#98. Freedom is the first wish of our heart; freedom is the first blessing of nature; and unless we bind ourselves with voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years
Edward Gibbon
#99. [Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
Edward Gibbon
#100. To a lover of books the shops and sales in London present irresistible temptations.
Edward Gibbon
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