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Freedom is the first wish of our heart freedom is the first blessing of nature and unless we bind ourselves with voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years

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
Years
Passion
Interest
Freedom
Voluntary
Wish
Bind
Nature
Advance
Firsts
Chains
First
Blessing
Heart
Unless

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

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Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.
Edward Gibbon
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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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The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
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[We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.
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It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
Edward Gibbon
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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.
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History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
Edward Gibbon
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But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
Edward Gibbon
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In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
Edward Gibbon
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Amiable weaknesses of human nature.
Edward Gibbon
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The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.
Edward Gibbon