Quote

On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

Edward Gibbon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Pleasure
Springtime
Without
Noisy
April
Crowds
Spring
Dissipation
Scene
Reluctance
Approach
Extensive
Company
Withdraw

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

Image
A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
Edward Gibbon
Image
[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Edward Gibbon
Image
In everyage and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, ofthetwosexes, hasusurped thepowers ofthe state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
Edward Gibbon
Image
[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Style is the image of character.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
Edward Gibbon
Image
[The] events by which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the reader would be exhausted by the repetition of the same hostilities [between Rome and Persia], undertaken without cause, prosecuted without glory, and terminated without effect.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
Edward Gibbon
Image
A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.
Edward Gibbon
Image
[The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.
Edward Gibbon
Image
But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
Image
But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
Edward Gibbon