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The ideas of inheritance and succession are so very familiar that the generality of mankind consider them as founded not only in reason but in nature itself.

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

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Source: Chap. 14.
Work: The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, 1776
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

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The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people.

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In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

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A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, is seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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.