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If we consult the succeeding writers ... their knowledge will appear gradually to increase as their means of information must have diminished, a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical disquisition.

— Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

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Source: Chapter 18.
Work: The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, 1776
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.

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In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hussyn will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.

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The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

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Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Gibbon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.