Edward Gibbon Quotes

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

» Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking,unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

» Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

» The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

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

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

» 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.

» Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.

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

» I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.

» 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 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.

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

» Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

» The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

» Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

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

» 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.

» Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

» I was never less alone than when by myself.

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

» We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.

» Style is the image of character.

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

» Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

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

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

» Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

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

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

» The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

» Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

» 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.

» Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

» 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.

» 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.

Edward Gibbon Quotes

Who Said It?

Daily Famous Quote

Quotes by Author

Quotes by Topic