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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
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Justify
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Age
Ill
Plead
Future
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Transactions
History
Record
Maxims
Past
Office
Persecution
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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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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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A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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The history of empires is the record of human misery the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
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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 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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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
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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] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
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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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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
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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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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
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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.
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Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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