Quotes About History

Another d-mn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?

The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for The

The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies.

In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth

The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor.

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.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

if a strict obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the year, should present himself before the lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond yhe narrow limits of the promised land. That obstacle was indeed removed by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem.

Instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long

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

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

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

Such, under the reign of the Antonines, were the six provinces of Gaul; the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic, or Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies. We

The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antonines—Part I.

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 [in 96] to the accession of Commodus [in 180].

The theologian," says Gibbon, "may indulge the pleasing task of describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the historian:— he must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

In the second century of the Christian Aera

the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth

If in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow a race of cannibals really existed, we may contemplate in the period of the Scottish history the opposite extremes of savage and civilised life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas, and to encourage the pleasing hope that New Zealand may produce in some future age the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.

Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c. 16. The oration of Agrippa, or rather of the historian, is a fine picture of the Roman empire.]

The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

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

Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.