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In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.

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
Fire
Controversy
Middle
Exposed
Open
Pity
Party
Field
Always
Ground
Fields
Stand
Moderate
Sides
Moderates

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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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[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents . . .
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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
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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.
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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 criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
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[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.
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This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.
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As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him brave as a lion yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.
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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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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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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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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 vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.
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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.
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I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
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