Famous Quotes

Quotes by Edward Gibbon

• Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
• But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
• Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.
• History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
• History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
• Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
• I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
• I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.
• I was never less alone than when by myself.
• Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
• Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
• Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
• The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
• The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
• Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
• Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.