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The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved the peace by a constant preparation for war.

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
Terror
Dignity
Emperors
Constant
Preserved
Weight
Emperor
Arms
Roman
Peace
Moderation
War
Added
Preparation

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[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .
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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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[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
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Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.
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The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents . . .
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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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Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
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The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.
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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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If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
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The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province [Britain] was again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean.
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[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
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Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
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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.
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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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While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.
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Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
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