Edward Gibbon
88 quotes
Biography
Edward Gibbon was a British essayist, historian and politician. His most important and influential work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, to critical and commercial success.
"Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition."
"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."
"Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes."
"I disdain to add a single reflection; nor shall I qualify the conduct of my adversary with any of those harsh epithets, which might be interpreted as the expressions of resentment, though I should be constrained to use them as the only words in the English language which could accurately represent my cool and unprejudiced sentiments."
"Mr. Gibbon may still maintain the character of an historian; but it is difficult to conceive how Mr. Davis will support his pretensions, if he aspires to that of a gentleman."
"The writer who aspires to the name of historian, is obliged to consult a variety of original testimonies, each of which, taken separately, is perhaps imperfect and partial. By a judicious reunion and arrangement of these dispersed materials, he endeavours to form a consistent and interesting narrative."
"It is the misfortune of controversy, that an error may be committed in three or four words, that cannot be rectified in less than thirty or forty lines."
"There are some advocates who would disgrace Christianity, if Christianity could be disgraced, by the manner in which they defend her cause."
"My readers, if any readers have accompanied me thus far, must be satisfied, and indeed satiated, with the repeated proofs which I have made of the weight and temper of my adversary's weapons. They have, in every assault, fallen dead and lifeless to the ground: they have more than once recoiled, and and dangerously wounded the unskilful hand that had presumed to use them."
"In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind."
"The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. 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. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord."
"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive."
"It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous."
"A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics."
"Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."
"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."
"Vitellius consumed in mere eating, at least six millions of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices with dignity, or even decency."
"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."
"There is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than their first surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards disdaining the dangerous use, of elephants in war."
"The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct."
"The contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman Empire."
"His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction."
"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 of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction."
"[E]unuchs, that pernicious vermin of the East..."
"Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of devotion; and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own hearts."