Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.

Imam Hussain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of rightousness.

It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted 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.

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

The vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.

Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.