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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

More quotes by Edward Gibbon

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Amiable weaknesses of human nature.
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Active valour may often be the present of nature but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
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The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
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The history of empires is the record of human misery the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
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Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied to the Roman slave and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom.
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The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
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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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But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.
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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
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The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.
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History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
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Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals . . .
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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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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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
Edward Gibbon
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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
Edward Gibbon
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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
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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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A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt [of the defendant] was presumed by the judges [due to the nature of the charge], and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.
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