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The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.
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
Writer
Frequently
Already
Grown
Difficult
Familiar
History
Various
Important
Subject
However
Ably
Subjects
Discussed
Reader
Successfully
More quotes by Edward Gibbon
Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage.
Edward Gibbon
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
Edward Gibbon
It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
Edward Gibbon
Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
Edward Gibbon
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
Edward Gibbon
So natural to man is the practice of violence that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.
Edward Gibbon
Religion is a mere question of geography.
Edward Gibbon
Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt [of the defendant] was presumed by the judges [due to the nature of the charge], and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.
Edward Gibbon
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.
Edward Gibbon
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
Edward Gibbon
History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
Edward Gibbon
A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
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.
Edward Gibbon
Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
Edward Gibbon
In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.
Edward Gibbon
[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
Edward Gibbon
But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
Edward Gibbon
Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
Edward Gibbon
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.
Edward Gibbon
