Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Course
Immediate
Religion
Accident
Action
Event
Nature
Accidents
Rashly
Seems
Appearance
Ascribed
Every
Ordinary
Deviate
Events
Deity
Courses
Deities
More quotes by Edward Gibbon
I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
Edward Gibbon
The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent cities a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness, and as the glory, of Antioch.
Edward Gibbon
[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .
Edward Gibbon
This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.
Edward Gibbon
The union of the Roman empire was dissolved its genius was humbled in the dust and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
Edward Gibbon
Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
Edward Gibbon
As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.
Edward Gibbon
The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.
Edward Gibbon
War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
Edward Gibbon
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
Edward Gibbon
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.
Edward Gibbon
The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
Edward Gibbon
The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation
Edward Gibbon
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim.
Edward Gibbon
A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
Edward Gibbon
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
Active valour may often be the present of nature but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
Edward Gibbon
[But] the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature.
Edward Gibbon
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Edward Gibbon