Frasi di Edward Gibbon

“I prìncipi sospettosi promuovono spesso l'ultimo degli uomini nella vana persuasione che chi dipende soltanto dal favore proverà attaccamento soltanto per il suo benefattore.”

Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

“A una cena memorabile trenta schiavi servirono a tavola: dieci giovani si appagarono di Teodora. La sua carità era universale.”

Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

“[Teodora] si augurava un quarto altare sul quale poter libare al dio dell'Amore.”

Declino e caduta dell'Impero romano, p. 457
Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

“I diversi culti religiosi che si osservavano nel Mondo romano, erano tutti considerati dal popolo come egualmente veri; dal filosofo come egualmente falsi, e dai magistrati come egualmente utili.”

Declino e caduta dell'Impero romano, p. 457
Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano
Origine: Alludendo a quel che dice Procopio di Cesarea riguardo all'uso "contro natura" che Teodora faceva del suo corpo.

“Questa muraglia di Antonino, poco al di là delle moderne città di Edimburgo e Glascovia, fu stabilita come il confine della provincia romana. I nativi Caledonj, nell’estremità settentrionale dell’isola, conservarono la loro selvaggia indipendenza, della quale andarono debitori alla loro povertà non meno che al loro valore. Furono spesso e respinte e punite le loro incursioni, ma il lor paese non fu mai soggiogato[11]”

1820, p. 42
Storia della decadenza e caduta dell'Impero Romano

“We improve ourselves by victory over our self. There must be contests, and you must win.”

Storia del Declino e della Caduta dell'Impero Romano

Edward Gibbon: Frasi in inglese

“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

“My early and invincible love of reading--I would not exchange for the treasures of India.”

Vol. 1, Chap. 68. Compare: "On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons" (translated: "It is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions"), Voltaire, Letter to M. le Riche. 1770; "J'ai toujours vu Dieu du coté des gros bataillons (translated: "I have always noticed that God is on the side of the heaviest battalions"), De la Ferté to Anne of Austria.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.”

“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.”

Memoirs (1796)

“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”

Edward Gibbon Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

Volume 1, Chapter 2 "Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire, in the Age of the Antonines" http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline/files/volume1/chap2.htm. The portion regarding the views of the religions of the time taken by various constituencies has been misreported as Gibbon's own assessment of religion generally. See Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), pp. 34–35. The bold text has been misattributed to Lucretius and Seneca the Younger. The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776) Origine: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Contesto: 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. Contesto: 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. The superstition of the people was not embittered by any mixture of theological rancour; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials.

“I make it a point never to argue with people for whose opinion I have no respect.”

“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.”

“Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.”

Edward Gibbon Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

Origine: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.”

“All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.”

Edward Gibbon Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

Vol. 1, Chap. 11.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)
Origine: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.”

“Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.”

“War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.”

“… as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”

Edward Gibbon Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

Origine: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.”

Origine: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness”

“In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hussyn will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.”

“The reign of Antoninus 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.”

Vol. 5, pages:391–392.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

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

Vol. 1, Chap. 3. Compare: "L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs" (translated: "History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes"), Voltaire, L'Ingénu, chap. x.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet [Muhammad] rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius… If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes?”

Vol. 1, Chap. 1.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria.”

EGPaIV" Edward Gibbon, [1788], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/05/daf05010.htm, Vol. 5, Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants. Part IV. The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.”

Memoirs (1796)

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Vol. 1, Chap. 71.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.”

This quotation appeared in an article by Margaret Thatcher, "The Moral Foundations of Society" ( Imprimis, March 1995 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-moral-foundations-of-society/), which was an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had given at Hillsdale College in November 1994. Here is the actual passage from Thatcher's article: <blockquote>[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.</blockquote> The italicized passage above originated with Thatcher. In characterizing the Athenians in the article she cited Sir Edward Gibbon, but she seems to have been paraphrasing statements in "Athens' Failure," a chapter of classicist Edith Hamilton's book The Echo of Greece (1957), pp. 47–48 http://www.ergo-sum.net/books/Hamilton_EchoOfGreece_pp.47-48.jpg). Misattributed

“Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.”

Memoirs (1796)

“Amiable weaknesses of human nature.”

Vol. 1, Chap. 49.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“Decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder.”

Vol. 1, Chap. 14. Compare: "Amiable weakness", Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book x, Chapter viii.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

“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.”

Memoirs (1796)

“The captain of the Hampshire grenadiers…has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire.”

Edward Gibbon Declino e caduta dell'Impero Romano

Vol. 1, Chap. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=aLcWAAAAQAAJ&q=&quot;It+has+been&quot;+&quot;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&quot;&pg=PA106#v=onepage The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)