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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

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
Constitution
Principles
Free
Lost
Irrecoverably
Power
Nominated
Legislative
Executive
Executives

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I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
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On the slightest touch the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.
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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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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
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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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A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages.
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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.
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Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
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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.
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It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.
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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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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.
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[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
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A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.
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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.
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A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
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