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History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.
Edward Gibbon
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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
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Gibbon
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More quotes by Edward Gibbon
The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.
Edward Gibbon
The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
Edward Gibbon
It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation.
Edward Gibbon
The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents . . .
Edward Gibbon
The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity.
Edward Gibbon
It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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
It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
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
The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.
Edward Gibbon
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.
Edward Gibbon
In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
Edward Gibbon
History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
Edward Gibbon
[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
Edward Gibbon
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Edward Gibbon
Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
Edward Gibbon
The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
Edward Gibbon
Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence.
Edward Gibbon
A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice his profusion, of liberality his obstinacy, of firmness.
Edward Gibbon
