Edward Gibbon ✓

(1737–1794) historian Kingdom of Great Britain

99 quotes in 1311 categories

[Wikidata] English historian and politician (1737–1794)... | [Wikipedia] Edward Gibbon was a British essayist, historian and minor politician. His most important and influential work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, to critical and commercial success. It is known for the quality and irony of its

Best Edward Gibbon Sayings

• Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. Expensive
• The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. Age
• I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest… Desire
• History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Crime
• I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes. Equal
• A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute. Action
• Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us… Aid
• But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. Almost Superfluous
• My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India. All
• Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Fairest
• The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. Ablest
• Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. Book
• Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. Cold
• The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. Army
• The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events. Almost Always
• All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance. Advance
• My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language. All
• The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. Fallacious
• The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. Constitution
• Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism. Desire
• Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. Art
• We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win. Contest
• Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself. Common
• It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in… Action
• The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in… Author

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