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The Gauls derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell.

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
Equally
Voracious
North
Rustic
Manners
Horrid
Appearance
Hairy
Smell
Gigantic
Sight
Savages
Joy
Disgusting
Dissonant
Appetite
Derided

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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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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
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The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
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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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[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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On the slightest touch the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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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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The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
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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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Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
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Women [in ancient Rome] were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the ancient law . . .
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Genius may anticipate the season of maturity but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.
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The most distinguished merit of those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus.
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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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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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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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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 frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.
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