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Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray he flattered only to ruin and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.

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
Always
State
Ruin
Privileges
Interest
Betray
Treaties
History
Ruins
Bind
Art
Arts
Oath
Obsequious
Cannot
Obligation
Released
Oaths
States
Privilege
Promised
Ample
Reason
Conscience
Justified
Flattered
Might
However
Occasionally
Inconvenient

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To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.
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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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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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Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
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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
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Religion is a mere question of geography.
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When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.
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The Gauls derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell.
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[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
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Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
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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.
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The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
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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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Freedom is the first wish of our heart freedom is the first blessing of nature and unless we bind ourselves with voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years
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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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Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
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History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
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The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation
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[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
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The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion . . .
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