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
mind age may
The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human 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.
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.
age may revolution
The revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.
years age west
[The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.
suicide age criminals
The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
military blood age
[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
real race age
We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.
history age might
It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable....
pride history age
When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.
exercise government history
Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.
arts english-historian habits learning original resolved
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking,unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
exercise greatness mind
The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind.
years ideas ruins
It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.