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
science law statistics
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
obscurity language obscenity
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
details littles events
The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
army soldier navy
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
atheist ignorance atheism
Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
writing air castles
There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground.
errors useless repentance
Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.
passion ideas giving
The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.
humanity historical lists
History, in fact, is no more than a list of the crimes of humanity, human follies and accidents
religion ordinary deities
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.
history narrative firsts
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
math epic age
The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.
religion atheism might
The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion.
humanity feelings emotion
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.