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A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages.

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
Loss
Sufficient
Thousand
Possession
Single
Destroy
Age
Ten
Sometimes
Complete
Work
Field
Yielded
Men
Victory
Bloody
Fields
Ages

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[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
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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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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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But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.
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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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My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.
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Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded but the charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.
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To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature.
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Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
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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 subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.
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The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent cities a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness, and as the glory, of Antioch.
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Style is the image of character.
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In everyage and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, ofthetwosexes, hasusurped thepowers ofthe state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.
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The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.
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The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
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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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A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
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So natural to man is the practice of violence that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.
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