Edward Gibbon Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Book, Writing

  Edward Gibbon (1814). “The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon: With Memoirs of His Life and Writings”, p.56

• In old age the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children, the faith of enthusiasts, who sing hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.

  Edward Gibbon

  Hope, Children, Writing

  Edward Gibbon (1827). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon, 1”, p.258

• The complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.

  Edward Gibbon

  Spring, Nice, Passion

  Edward Gibbon (1828). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.501

• There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground.

  Edward Gibbon

  Writing, Air, Castles

  Edward Gibbon (1869). “The Autobiography and Correspondence of Edward Gibbon, the Historian”, p.164

• It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.

  Edward Gibbon

  Memories, Writing, Practice

  Edward Gibbon, John Holroyd Earl of Sheffield (1837). “The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq: With Memoirs of His Life and Writings”, p.97

• The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.

  Edward Gibbon

  Writing, Exercise, Choices

  Edward Gibbon (1837). “The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon: With Memoirs of His Life and Writing Composed by Himself, Illustrated from His Letters with Occasional Notes and Narrative”, p.92

• It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Fall, Writing, Rome

  Memoirs of My Life ch. 6 (1796)

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