Edward Gibbon Quotes

History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.

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.

Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.

The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents . . .

[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.

Majorian presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honor of the human species.

It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.

The most distinguished merit of those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus.

Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

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.

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.

Does there exist a single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles?

On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

History, in fact, is no more than a list of the crimes of humanity, human follies and accidents

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.

These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valour.

Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.

Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .

I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.

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.

[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.

[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.

The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation

The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and blood . . .

The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.

A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war.

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.

[Personal] industry must be faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.

A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.

[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.

A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.

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.

... but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.

My early and invincible love of reading--I would not exchange for the treasures of India.

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.

It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of invisible enemies

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius.

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes follies and misfortunes of mankind.

Unprovided with original learning unformed in the habits of thinking unskilled in the arts of composition I resolved to write a book.

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for the treasures of India.

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true by the philosopher as equally false and by the magistrate as equally useful.

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.