Edward Gibbon

“If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber…

— Edward Gibbon

At the hour of midnight the Salerian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the…

— Edward Gibbon

“The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them…

— Edward gibbon

In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the…

— Edward Gibbon

The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who…

— Edward Gibbon

Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labour…

— Edward Gibbon

“if a strict obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the year, should present himself before…

— Edward Gibbon

Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to…

— Edward Gibbon

'I believe in one God and Mohammed the Apostle of God,' is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image…

— Edward Gibbon

To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most…

— Edward Gibbon

The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent…

— Edward Gibbon

It is incumbent on us diligently to remember that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, and that…

— Edward Gibbon

The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war…

— Edward Gibbon

The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved…

— Edward Gibbon

The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious…

— Edward Gibbon

Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted…

— Edward Gibbon

The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference…

— Edward Gibbon

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of…

— Edward Gibbon

I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame.…

— Edward Gibbon

But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour…

— Edward Gibbon

Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed…

— Edward Gibbon

Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must…

— Edward Gibbon

The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with…

— Edward Gibbon

The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the…

— Edward Gibbon

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a…

— Edward Gibbon

Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist without…

— Edward Gibbon

In less than seven years the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated, and the city appeared to resume its former…

— Edward Gibbon

The German huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity than…

— Edward Gibbon

The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same…

— Edward Gibbon

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to…

— Edward Gibbon

The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to…

— Edward Gibbon

If Julian had flattered himself that his personal connexion with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to…

— Edward Gibbon

In the most rigorous [Roman] laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were…

— Edward Gibbon

The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single…

— Edward Gibbon

Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict which…

— Edward Gibbon

“Spain, the western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the ancient world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same…

— Edward Gibbon

But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants;…

— Edward Gibbon

“The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the…

— Edward Gibbon

An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase…

— Edward Gibbon