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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

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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
May
Charity
Saintly
Might
Whose
Disregarded
Events
Bishop
Name
Dignified
Shall
Calendar
Names
Calendars
History
Bishops
Lost
Oblivion
Disbelieved

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The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
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It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
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But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
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To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
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And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.
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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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The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
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The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.
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The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
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On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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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.
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[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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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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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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