Action Quote by Edward Gibbon

“It was really rather wretched that you couldn’t will yourself to fall in love, for the very effort can keep falling at bay. Nor…

— Lionel Shriver

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

— Edward Gibbon

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

— Edward Gibbon

Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few…

— Edward Gibbon

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

— Edward Gibbon

The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without difficulty and without reluctance; and posterity will confess that the character of Theodosius…

— Edward Gibbon

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

— Edward Gibbon

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised; honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an…

— Edward Gibbon

The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably…

— Edward Gibbon

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

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

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

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

— Edward Gibbon

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

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