Edward Gibbon Empires Quotations

The history of empires is the history of human misery.

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

[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.

[Instead] of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.