Person
Edward Gibbon was a British essayist, historian and 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 prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion.
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“I disdain to add a single reflection; nor shall I qualify the conduct of my adversary with any of those harsh epithets, which might be interpreted as the expressions of resentment, though I should be constrained to use them as the only words in the English language which could accurately represent my cool and unprejudiced sentiments.”
“If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.”
“A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.”
“The incredible speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated than his prowess in the battle.”
“[T]he progress of despotism ... tends to disappoint its own purpose.”
“My English is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.
