Edward Gibbon Quotes

To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.

The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.

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

It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.

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.

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.

Active valour may often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.

[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.

[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.

In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.

The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave.

The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.

Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity.

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

The first of earthly blessings, independence.

A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.

As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.

Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.

In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.

Feeble and timid minds . . . consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

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.

But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice.

The revenge of a guilty woman is implacable.

[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.

The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.

History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.

There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

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.

The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.

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.

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.

[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .

Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

The Gauls derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell.

The difference of language, dress, and manners . . . severs and alienates the nations of the globe.

From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue.

To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.

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.

War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.

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.

According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.