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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.

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
Persons
Person
Giving
Important
Educations
Every
Receives
Gives
Others
Two

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

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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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In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
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A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt [of the defendant] was presumed by the judges [due to the nature of the charge], and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.
Edward Gibbon
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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
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
Edward Gibbon
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The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
Edward Gibbon
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[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
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.
Edward Gibbon
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Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
Edward Gibbon
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Edward Gibbon
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Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Edward Gibbon
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The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind.
Edward Gibbon
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the catholic church.
Edward Gibbon
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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
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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.
Edward Gibbon