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

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The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
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I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
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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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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
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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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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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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
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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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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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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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Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
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Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.
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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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Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
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I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
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