The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Philosophy alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy), that her gentle hand is able to… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
But a wild democracy . . . too often disdains the essential principles of justice. — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition,… — Edward Gibbon Copy Share Image
The chaste severity of the fathers in whatever related to the commerce of the two sexes flowed from the same principle --… — 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
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![“[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and…” quote by Edward Gibbon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/338/edward-gibbon-710_byzantine_in-the-national-and-religious-conflict-o_29382.jpg)
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