Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

Edward Gibbon

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

Edward Gibbon

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.

Edward Gibbon

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Edward Gibbon

I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.

Edward Gibbon

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Edward Gibbon

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

Edward Gibbon

The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.

Edward Gibbon

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

Edward Gibbon

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

Edward Gibbon

I was never less alone than when by myself.

Edward Gibbon

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.

Edward Gibbon