Edward Gibbon (1737–94) was an English rationalist historian, politician, bibliophile, and man of letters. He was the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88,) which is generally regarded as a monumental work of literature as well as historical analysis.
Born in Putney, Surrey, he was educated at Westminster and Oxford’s Magdalen College.
On a visit to Rome in 1764, he decided to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6 vol., 1776–88,) the work for which he continues to be best known. Acclaimed as literature as well as history, it narrates the continuity of the Roman Empire from the age of the Roman soldier Trajan in the 2nd century CE to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Although its chapters provoked controversy for their critical account of the spread of Christianity, the conquests of Islam, and the Crusades, it is still read for its clarity, accuracy, and brilliant style.
Gibbon entered Parliament in 1774 and served as commissioner of trade and plantations. After 1788, he spent much of the remainder of his life with John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, who published Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works (1796.)
A bibliophile, Gibbon termed his 7,000 volume-library “the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my life.”
Gibbon’s Autobiography (1896,) a classic of the genre, includes a discussion of his return to Protestantism and his forbidden love for Suzanne Curchod. She subsequently became the French-Swiss salonist Madame Necker, the mother of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Staël, a French woman of letters and historian.
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I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.
—Edward Gibbon
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Books, Reading
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Historians, History
Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures, since the productions of nature are the materials of art.
—Edward Gibbon
I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Duty
The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Public
Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Reading, Books
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: The Military, Army, Navy
I the Christian religion is one that diffuses among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of ethics, adapted to every condition of life, and recommended as the will and reason of the Supreme Deity, and enforced by sanctions of eternal punishment.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Religion
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Nature, Win, Doing Your Best, Self-reliance, Luck, War, Ability
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
Topics: Hope
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Lawyers, Law
A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Modesty
If I may speak of myself, my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the Caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of composing my history.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Happiness
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Ignorance, Learning
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Liberty
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
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Swearing, Profanity, Vulgarity
Style is the image of character.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Character, Style
We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. There must be contests, and you must win.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Self-Control, Victory, Control
Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to what our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Reading
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Fanaticism
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Action
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
—Edward Gibbon
I was never less alone than when by myself.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Loneliness
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Beauty
The first of earthly blessings, independence.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: One liners, Independence
I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Economics, Economy, Wealth, Wishes
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.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Education
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
—Edward Gibbon
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