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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

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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
History
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Human
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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
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[The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.
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Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
Edward Gibbon
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[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .
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Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
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According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
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[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
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To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.
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The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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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.
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
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But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
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And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.
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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
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The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.
Edward Gibbon