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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.

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
Perpetual
Humanity
Justice
War
Form
Fairest
Implies
Violation

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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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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
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In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.
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To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.
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bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
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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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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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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
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Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
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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.
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A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice his profusion, of liberality his obstinacy, of firmness.
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[We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.
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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
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Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
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Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
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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.
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