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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.

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
Life
Safely
Applied
Term
Lasts
Last
Happy
Styled
Might
Epithet
Men
Precarious

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

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The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind.
Edward Gibbon
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The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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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.
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.
Edward Gibbon
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[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
Edward Gibbon
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Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.
Edward Gibbon
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The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion . . .
Edward Gibbon
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It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
Edward Gibbon
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A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.
Edward Gibbon
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In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.
Edward Gibbon
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[The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.
Edward Gibbon
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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 . . .
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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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
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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The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents . . .
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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Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
Edward Gibbon
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And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.
Edward Gibbon