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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.

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
Firsts
Conceived
First
Ruins
Work
Nearly
Years
Twenty
Life
Twenties
Authorship
Among
Exercised
Idea
Capitol
Ideas
Amused

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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
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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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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.
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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.
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The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
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The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.
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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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Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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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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[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .
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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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According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
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I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
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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.
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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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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
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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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