Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
Edward GibbonThe philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that, if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently been insulted by fiction.
Edward GibbonThe frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind.
Edward GibbonOf the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
Edward Gibbon