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

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Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
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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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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
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Philosophy alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy), that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.
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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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I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
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I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
Edward Gibbon
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Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.
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The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind.
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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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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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[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
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[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
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In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
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The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
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In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
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So long as mankind shall continue to lavish more praise upon its destroyers than upon its benefactors war shall remain the chief pursuit of ambitious minds.
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Religion is a mere question of geography.
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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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