Quote

History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

Edward Gibbon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Character
Elevation
Scarcely
Notice
Birth
History
Death

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

Image
Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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.
Edward Gibbon
Image
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
Image
We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the catholic church.
Edward Gibbon
Image
The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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
Image
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
Image
[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
Edward Gibbon
Image
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.
Edward Gibbon
Image
[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.
Edward Gibbon
Image
bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
Edward Gibbon
Image
It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.
Edward Gibbon
Image
A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages.
Edward Gibbon
Image
A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
Edward Gibbon
Image
To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
Edward Gibbon
Image
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
Edward Gibbon
Image
But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
Edward Gibbon