Edward Gibbon

Who was Edward Gibbon?

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organised religion.

Famous Quotes:

• Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved-to write a book.
• I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
• We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.
• I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.
• Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
• I was never less alone than when by myself.
• My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
• All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
• The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.
• I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.