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If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.

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
Life
Ruins
Cottage
Affected
Cottages
Misery
Miseries
Sorrow
Estimate
Humanity
Palace
Human
Palaces
Humans
Ruin
Conflagration
Must
Formed
Erroneous

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Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.
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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
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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.
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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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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 union of the Roman empire was dissolved its genius was humbled in the dust and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
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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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Active valour may often be the present of nature but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
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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 patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral 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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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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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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The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.
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A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt [of the defendant] was presumed by the judges [due to the nature of the charge], and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.
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I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
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So long as mankind shall continue to lavish more praise upon its destroyers than upon its benefactors war shall remain the chief pursuit of ambitious minds.
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[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
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Amiable weaknesses of human nature.
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