The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Quotes

“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.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“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 in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. 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 mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.”
― Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil constitution.”
― Edward gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era's declension as a place where "bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Active valour may often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of the Cæsars. The parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall we find, in the character of Severus, the commanding superiority of the soul, the generous clemency, and the various genius, which could reconcile and unite the love of pleasure, the thirst of knowledge, and the fire of ambition? ⁴⁴

⁴⁴ Though it is not, most assuredly, the intention of Lucan to exalt the character of Cæsar, yet the idea he gives of that hero, in the tenth book of the Pharsalia, where he describes him, at the same time making love to Cleopatra, sustaining a siege against the power of Egypt, and conversing with the sages of the country, is, in reality, the noblest panegyric.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“he forgot that the best of omens is to unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“the fundamental maxim of Artistotle, that true virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war;”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers." ^15”
― Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1-6

“Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the expense of the public; and both may be turned against the possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. ”
― Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols

“The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The authority of the prince," said Artaxerxes, "must be defended by a military force; that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of justice and moderation." ^55”
― Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1-6

“Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he passed as an exile or a fugitive; and almost every province of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory, of his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of labour, jealous of fame, careless of safety; and”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“the race of men born to the exercise of arms, was sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths, carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigour and resolution, than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of luxury.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery.31 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had enured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.32”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire