Edward Gibbon
Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.Collection: Business
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.Collection: History
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.Collection: Respect
I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.Collection: Happiness
The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.Collection: Brainy
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.Collection: Freedom
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.Collection: Learning
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.Collection: Sympathy
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.Collection: History
Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.Collection: Education
But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.Collection: Power
I was never less alone than when by myself.Collection: Alone
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.Collection: Courage
We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Style is the image of character.
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
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.
It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
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.
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.Collection: Simple
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.Collection: Wisdom
The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Future
Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.Collection: Spiritual
The best and most important part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Military
A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.Collection: Character
In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.Collection: Courage
There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.Collection: Strong
It is scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated.Collection: Military
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Military