Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist without… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
In everyage and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, ofthetwosexes, hasusurped thepowers ofthe state, and confined the other to the… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and abstemious… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
On the approach of spring, I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table, and the warmth of his… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws;… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West:… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord; nor… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image