Edward Gibbon

Since the foundation of Rome no general had more nobly deserved a triumph than Aurelian.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

When Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple of the conqueror.

It was easier to vanquish the Goths than to eradicate the public vices.

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal objects of history.

Civil governments, in their first institutions, are voluntary associations for mutual defence.

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are …

The most civilised nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners.

Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of devotion; and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own …

[E]unuchs, that pernicious vermin of the East...

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.

His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction.

The contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as …

The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and were he totally devoid of …

There is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than their first surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards disdaining the dangerous use, of elephants in war.

It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.

Vitellius consumed in mere eating, at least six millions of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices with dignity, or even decency.

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the …

Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, …

A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics.

It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous.

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only …

Wit and valour are qualities that are more easily ascertained than virtue, or the love of wisdom.