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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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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
States
Wiser
Country
Pleasures
Life
Cares
Stronger
Least
Pleasure
Ofthe
State
Confined
Care
Domestic

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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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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.
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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
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The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
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It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.
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The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.
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[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
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But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
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Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.
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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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[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.
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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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.
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A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness.
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It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation.
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The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty.
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