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The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation

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
Body
Howsoever
Important
Pains
Pleasures
Subject
Conversation
Subjects
Pleasure
Pain
Indelicate

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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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Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
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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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In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
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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 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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Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
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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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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.
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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
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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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I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
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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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If this Punic war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.
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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.
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A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
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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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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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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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According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
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