Edward Gibbon Quotes About Human Nature

Quotes about: Human Nature

• All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wisdom, Growth, Doe

  'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' (1776-88) ch. 71

• Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.

  Edward Gibbon

  Sex, Passion, Love Is

  Edward Gibbon (1998). “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.191, Wordsworth Editions

• To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature.

  Edward Gibbon

  Character, Ideas, History

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

• We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss of some illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have seemed the most worthy of the heavenly present. The names of Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and exalt the dignity of human natures.

  Edward Gibbon

  Character, Eye, Loss

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “EDWARD GIBBON Premium Collection: Historiographical Works, Memoirs & Letters: Including "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.583, e-artnow

• There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.

  Edward Gibbon

  Strong, History, Evil

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.253, Modern Library

• Amiable weaknesses of human nature.

  Edward Gibbon

  Nature, Weakness, Humans

  Edward Gibbon (1821). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.101

• The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.

  Edward Gibbon

  Army, Soldier, Navy

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.283

• The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.

  Edward Gibbon

  Passion, Ideas, History

  Edward Gibbon (1781). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.317

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