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[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.

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
Always
Vice
Operations
Vices
Restrain
Inspire
Precarious
Laws
Wisest
Virtue
Operation
Law
Imperfect
Cannot
Seldom

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Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray he flattered only to ruin and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.
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[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .
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Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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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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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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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.
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The author himself is the best judge of his own performance none has so deeply meditated on the subject none is so sincerely interested in the event.
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Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
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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.
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[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .
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War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
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bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
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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.
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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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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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