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.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Edward Gibbon
The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day and hour with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Study
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Religion
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust. Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum, supplied the legions with excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the monarchy. Their personal valour remained, but they no longer possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of independence, the sense of national honour, the presence of danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference of private life.
—Edward Gibbon
A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Modesty
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Win, Nature, Ability, Luck, Doing Your Best, War, Self-reliance
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
Style is the image of character.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Character, Style
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Historians, History
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Action
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
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Kindness, Progress, Growth
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Liberty
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 pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Facts
We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. There must be contests, and you must win.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Control, Self-Control, Victory
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Law, Lawyers
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Army, Navy, The Military
The first of earthly blessings, independence.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Independence, One liners
I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Duty
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Autobiography, Legacy
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: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Books, Reading
I was never less alone than when by myself.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Loneliness
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Tragedy, Sympathy, Disasters
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Fanaticism
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
—Edward Gibbon
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
The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Critics, Criticism
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Beauty
If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
—Edward Gibbon
Topics: Sorrow
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
E. V. Lucas English Author
B. H. Liddell Hart English Military Journalist, Historian
James Anthony Froude British Historian
C. Northcote Parkinson British Historian
Daniel J. Boorstin American Historian
Francesco Guicciardini Italian Historian
James Truslow Adams American Historian
Jacques Barzun French-born American Historian
James Harvey Robinson American Historian
Alfred Whitney Griswold American Historian