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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

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
Distant
Sympathy
Misery
Relation
Cold
Suffering

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

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Style is the image of character.
Edward Gibbon
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The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.
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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.
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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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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.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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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
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Active valour may often be the present of nature but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
Edward Gibbon
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Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
Edward Gibbon
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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
Edward Gibbon
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The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity.
Edward Gibbon
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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
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In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
Edward Gibbon
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The vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.
Edward Gibbon
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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
Edward Gibbon
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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
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
Edward Gibbon
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Religion is a mere question of geography.
Edward Gibbon