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Quote by Edward Gibbon

“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, and misfortunes of mankind.”

Book:The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812

Work

The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812

The collection features Edward Gibbon's abridged version of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', which examines the political and social factors leading to the fall of the Roman Empire. It also includes George B. Grundy's 'Montcalm and Wolfe', detailing the French and Indian War. Additionally, it includes 'History of the Conquest of Mexico' by William H. Prescott, which narrates the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Lastly, it includes Alfred Thayer Mahan's 'The Naval War of 1812', which analyzes the naval aspects of the War of 1812. more

Author

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian renowned for his magnum opus, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. His work has had a profound impact on historical studies. more

“The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years, he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray; he flattered only to ruin; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.”

Art States Reason Might Interest History Conscience Privilege Obligation Ruins Betray Justified Oath Treaties Roman Empire Inconvenient Flattered

Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“His manners were less pure, but his character was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.”

Important Difficult History Subjects Reader Various Familiar Roman Empire

Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.”

People Country History Property Possession Enjoyment Pledge Roman Empire Civilised

Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. At the same time, they were not authorised to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike, a private citizen.”

Years Two Whole Hands Views History Citizens Property Strikes Instance Manners Sufficient Remarkable Division Roman Empire Magistrates

Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.”

Source: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty. From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life.”

Source: The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, with notes by Milman and Guizot. Ed. by W. Smith

“The German huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a persian harem. To this reason, another may be added of a more honourable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human.”

Source: The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812

Quote by Edward Gibbon

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