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Edward Gibbon Quotes - Page 15

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The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent

The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and, if those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single man.

Edward Gibbon
Revenge, Ambition, Men
Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.488

In their censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial; and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any colour except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or silver, downy pillows, white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and am impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator.

Edward Gibbon
Lying, Father, Wine
Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.44

Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence.

Edward Gibbon
Lying, Differences, History
Edward Gibbon (1840). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.13

It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.

Edward Gibbon
Prejudice, Stubborn, Legislators
Edward Gibbon (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)”, p.2407, Delphi Classics

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years, he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent.

Edward Gibbon
Passion, Years, History
Edward Gibbon (1821). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.92

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