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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

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
Despotism
Disappoint
Tends
Progress
Purpose

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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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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
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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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Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
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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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Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.
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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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The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.
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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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The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
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[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .
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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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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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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
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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 courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
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Philosophy alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy), that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.
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A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness.
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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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