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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

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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
History
Awful
Secrecy
Even
Worship
Concealed
Mystery
Mysteries
Wonder
Strangers
Eyes
Served
Eye
Affected
Faith
Curiosity
Christian
Stranger
Excite

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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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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.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.
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The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.
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Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
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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.
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Religion is a mere question of geography.
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The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul and it is well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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The love of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of impunity.
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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.
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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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But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.
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In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.
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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.
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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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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
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As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.
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Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
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