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

Edward Gibbon

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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Littles
Historian
Little
Folly
Prison
Indeed
Follies
Crime
Tourism
Mankind
Register
War
Crimes
History
Misfortunes

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The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved the peace by a constant preparation for war.
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But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
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The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent cities a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness, and as the glory, of Antioch.
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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.
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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .
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Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.
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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.
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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
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The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.
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The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation
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Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray he flattered only to ruin and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.
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The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
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Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied to the Roman slave and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom.
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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.
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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
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The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
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Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
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But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
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