From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue.
Edward Gibbon[Personal] industry must be faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.
Edward GibbonInstead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage.
Edward GibbonTruth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
Edward GibbonIn the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws which it was their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade.
Edward GibbonThe brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their female captives; and a nice question of casuistry was seriously agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost, by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. There were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind and more general concern.
Edward Gibbon