Active Quote by Edward Gibbon

“The aspiring efforts of genius, or virtue, either in active or speculative life, are measured, not so much by their real elevation, as by the height to which they ascend above the level of their age and country; and the same stature, which in a people of giants would pass unnoticed, must appear conspicuous in a race of pygmies.”

Edward Gibbon

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Active Age Country Effort Elevation Genius Giants Height Intelligence Levels Life People Race Real Stature Unnoticed Virtue

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That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws;…

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The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of…

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A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.

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Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each…

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Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates…

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It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

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If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was…

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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West:…

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But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord; nor…

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[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.

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The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring…

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