Quotes from Edward Gibbon

If our general wishes to lead us to the banks of the Tyber, we are prepared to trace out his camp. Whatsoever walls he has determined to level with the ground, our hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we hesitate, should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself.

These overtures of peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans.

It is easy for faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues, by artfully confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest affinity.

Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.

In the more remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The east was in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the west was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown.

The ambassadors had encamped on the edge of a large morass.

When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that isn't mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce which allows the unsuccessful compeditent to sharpen his arms for a new encounter.

Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures;

Twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes attested the variety of [Gordian's] inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation.

whose one hundred and twenty-nine homilies are still extant, if what no one reads may be said to be extant.]

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. Gibbon, Edward. HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE COMPLETE VOLUMES 1 - 6

years, according to my wish, of health, of leisure

Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and to depreciate the present

prayers of St. Genevieve diverted the march of Attila from the neighborhood of Paris. But as the greatest part of the Gallic cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they were besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practised, in the example of Metz, their customary maxims of war.

The modest, the sober, and the learned, are seldom preferred; and the nomenclators, who are commonly swayed by interested motives, have the address to insert, in the list of invitations, the obscure names of the most worthless of mankind

It is the aid of God! exclaimed the bishop, in a tone of pious confidence; and the whole multitude repeated after him, It is the aid of God.

I myself, continued Attila, will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his sovereign, is devoted to inevitable death.

They massacred their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or their bones were crushed under the weight of rolling wagons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on the public roads, as a prey to dogs and vultures.

The libraries, which they have inherited from their fathers, are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day.

The demand was again rejected, or eluded; and the indignant lover immediately took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of Barbarians.

In those palaces, sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to that of the mind.

Ambition is a weed of quick and early vegetation in the vineyard of Christ.

It is allowed as a salutary maxim, that the light and frivolous suspicion of a contagious malady, is of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends; and even the servants, who are despatched to make the decent inquiries, are not suffered to return home, till they have undergone the ceremony of a previous ablution.

The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even of a legacy; and a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans.