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The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.

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
Separation
Stranger
Mankind
Rest
Enemy
Ideas
Confound
Arabs
Accustomed

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The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
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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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But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.
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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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History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
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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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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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[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
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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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It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
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Women [in ancient Rome] were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the ancient law . . .
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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.
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[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
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The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events
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Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
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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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But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
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