According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
Edward GibbonIt is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
Edward GibbonBoth Moscow and [Kiev], the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes [by the Tartars]; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on the character of the Russians.
Edward Gibbon