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Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
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
Fortune
Neither
Buries
Works
Proudest
Cities
Vicissitudes
Common
Spares
Men
Empires
Grave
Graves
More quotes by Edward Gibbon
Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
Edward Gibbon
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
In old age the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children, the faith of enthusiasts, who sing hallelujahs above the clouds and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.
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
Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence.
Edward Gibbon
If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
Edward Gibbon
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
Edward Gibbon
bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
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 author himself is the best judge of his own performance none has so deeply meditated on the subject none is so sincerely interested in the event.
Edward Gibbon
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.
Edward Gibbon
To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.
Edward Gibbon
Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
Edward Gibbon
Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
Edward Gibbon
Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates who reigned in the capital of the East was rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria.
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
The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.
Edward Gibbon
The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians.
Edward Gibbon
[The] penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
Edward Gibbon
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Edward Gibbon
