Edward Gibbon Quotes
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. Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. Style is the image of character. 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. The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events. The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. 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. The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. 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. We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.
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