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But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.

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
Character
Conditions
Temporary
May
Seem
Proper
Human
Levels
Enthusiasm
Resume
Humans
Present
Condition
Resumes
Passion
Degrees
Adapted
Natural
However
Exalted
History
Level
Depressed
Seems
Return
Passions

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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.
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But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.
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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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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
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To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.
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[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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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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[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
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In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
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The vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.
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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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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.
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Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
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The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province [Britain] was again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean.
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But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .
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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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Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
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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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