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The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.

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
Human
Reader
Ruins
Exhibits
Humans
Single
Manners
Tedious
Would
Attention
Narrative
Fatigue
Interesting
Town
Complaints
Simple
Towns
Repetition
Family
Patient
Ruin
Circumstantial
History
Picture
Misfortunes
Instructive
Might
Exist
Vague
Exhibit

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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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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the catholic church.
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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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[But] the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature.
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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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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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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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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
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Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.
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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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In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
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Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
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All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
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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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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 value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
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