Quote

The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.

Edward Gibbon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
History
Provoke
Doe
Frequent
Reason
Provoking
Serves
Repetition
Miracles
Miracle
Mankind
Subdue

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

Image
bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
Edward Gibbon
Image
And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
Edward Gibbon
Image
It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded but the charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.
Edward Gibbon
Image
It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
Edward Gibbon
Image
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
Edward Gibbon
Image
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
Edward Gibbon
Image
[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.
Edward Gibbon
Image
[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Edward Gibbon
Image
But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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.
Edward Gibbon
Image
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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
Image
We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.
Edward Gibbon
Image
History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
Edward Gibbon