Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon FRS was an English historian, writer and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organized religion...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth27 April 1737
details littles events
The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
obscurity language obscenity
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
science law statistics
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
power principles constitution
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
spring crowds scene
On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.
taken recovery pride
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
law safety justice
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.
fall rome christianity
In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
passion perfect saving
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.
fall writing rome
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.
intellectual age hussain
In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.
law form portions
The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history
two giving important
Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
education clever ideas
One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education.