Edward Gibbon Quotes About Duty

Quotes about: Duty

• The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

  Edward Gibbon

  Errors, Race, Long

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.237, Modern Library

• The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince, who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honours, and revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion.

  Edward Gibbon

  Memories, Revenge, Grateful

  Edward Gibbon (2013). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

• The brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their female captives; and a nice question of casuistry was seriously agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost, by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. There were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind and more general concern.

  Edward Gibbon

  Nice, Loss, History

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.74

• In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.

  Edward Gibbon

  Military, War, Army

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “EDWARD GIBBON Premium Collection: Historiographical Works, Memoirs & Letters: Including "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.731, e-artnow

• In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws which it was their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade.

  Edward Gibbon

  Country, Art, War

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.33, e-artnow

• [It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.

  Edward Gibbon

  Law, Sovereign, Authority

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.51

• Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty.

  Edward Gibbon

  Sacrifice, People, Helping

  Edward Gibbon (1825). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1: Complete in Eight Volumes”, p.180

• [A] military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the duty of obedience.

  Edward Gibbon

  Military, Numbers, Europe

  Edward Gibbon, William Smith (1857). “The Student's Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.252

• To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince . . .

  Edward Gibbon

  Assessment, Soldier, Proud

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.3284, e-artnow

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