The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
Category Archive: 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.
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.
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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.
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
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 laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.