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Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity.

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
Action
Event
Nature
Accidents
Rashly
Seems
Appearance
Ascribed
Every
Ordinary
Deviate
Events
Deity
Courses
Deities
Course
Immediate
Religion
Accident

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[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
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Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
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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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[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
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Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
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Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
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Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.
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Religion is a mere question of geography.
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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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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.
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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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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
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bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
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The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.
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The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
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The history of empires is the record of human misery the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
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Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon