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The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.

— Edward Gibbon

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Source: (1788), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1, Chap. 15, on the progress of the Christian religion, and the sentiments, manners, numbers, and condition of the primitive Christians .
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

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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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Topics

Christianity

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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.

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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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Attribution

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.