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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.

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
Produced
Embittered
Mutual
Rancor
Thus
Concord
Religious
Toleration
Even
Superstition
People
Theological
Indulgence
Superstitions

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Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
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Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
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It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
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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.
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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.
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A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
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The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul and it is well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.
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Genius may anticipate the season of maturity but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
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Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
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