Edward Gibbon Quotes

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Edward Gibbon

Profession : Historian

Birth : April 27, 1737

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Edward Gibbon

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

Edward Gibbon

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Edward Gibbon

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.

Edward Gibbon

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

Edward Gibbon

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

Edward Gibbon

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.

Edward Gibbon

Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Edward Gibbon

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

Edward Gibbon

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.

Edward Gibbon

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

Edward Gibbon

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.

Edward Gibbon

The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.

Edward Gibbon

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.

Edward Gibbon

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

Edward Gibbon

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

Edward Gibbon

History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

Edward Gibbon