Edward Gibbon Quotes

Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius.

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.

Unprovided with original learning unformed in the habits of thinking unskilled in the arts of comp...

... but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hop...

The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful...

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

If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful w...

It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far m...

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as...

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes follies and misfortunes of mankind.

Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era's declen...

Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers w...

The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whats...

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a...

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, tha...

Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capriciou...

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

My early and invincible love of reading--I would not exchange for the treasures of India.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of comp...

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which h...

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, every new calamity urges trembling mortals to dep...

Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of comp...

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

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for the treasures of India.

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers;...