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In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.

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
Art
Animal
Primitive
Gatherers
States
Almost
Ill
Abject
Human
Names
Arts
Brute
Humans
Law
Deserve
Poorly
Without
State
Laws
Brutes
Society
Creation
Hunters
Language
Rest
Distinguished
Sense
Name
Deserves

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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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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.
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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 reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim.
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The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
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Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity.
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
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The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.
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But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
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In old age the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children, the faith of enthusiasts, who sing hallelujahs above the clouds and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.
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But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
Edward Gibbon
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The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation
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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.
Edward Gibbon
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The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.
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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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[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
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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