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[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.

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
Acts
However
Military
Blood
Virtue
Abounds
Age
Renown
Science
Destitute
Every
Sufficiently

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On the slightest touch the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
Edward Gibbon
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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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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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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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Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence.
Edward Gibbon
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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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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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[The] noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
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Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
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Freedom is the first wish of our heart freedom is the first blessing of nature and unless we bind ourselves with voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years
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But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .
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Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage.
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It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
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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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It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
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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 monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.
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The union of the Roman empire was dissolved its genius was humbled in the dust and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
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In old age the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children, the faith of enthusiasts, who sing hallelujahs above the clouds and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.
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The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.
Edward Gibbon