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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.

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
Private
Dexterity
Authority
Legislator
Wisdom
Victorious
Interest
Vigilant
Legislators
Contest
Contests
Seldom

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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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Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life . . .
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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.
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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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Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.
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The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.
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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.
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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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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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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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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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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
Edward Gibbon
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
Edward Gibbon
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The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.
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A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
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.
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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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Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
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