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A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice his profusion, of liberality his obstinacy, of firmness.

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
Liberty
Flash
Awed
Justice
Assume
Despot
Law
Cruelty
Liberality
Nations
Assuming
Despots
Power
Ignorant
Flashes
Character
Benefits
Obstinacy
Must
Equal
Firmness
Nation
Arbitrary
Profusion

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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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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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The history of empires is the record of human misery the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
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This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.
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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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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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When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.
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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
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Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
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But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
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History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
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[But] the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature.
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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
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A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
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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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A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.
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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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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
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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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