Edward Gibbon Quotes About Past

Quotes about: Past

• History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.

  Edward Gibbon

  Past, Tyrants, History

  Edward Gibbon (1826). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.18

• The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Character, Past

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.502

• The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest, and a just apprehension lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy's country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of nations.

  Edward Gibbon

  Country, War, Exercise

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.161

• I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

  Edward Gibbon

  Future, Science, Past

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin