Edward Gibbon Quotes

No nation now sets forth to despoil another upon the avowed ground that it desires the spoils.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

The causes of war are the same as the causes of competition among individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, and pride; the desire for food, land, materials, fuels, mastery. The state has our instincts without our restraints.

In the nature of man we find three principle causes of quarrel. First, competition; second diffidence; thirdly, glory.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.

I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do to do good?

You want Paradise, you gotta build it on war, on blood, on envy and naked greed.

The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.

It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it;

The more you have, the more you want L'appetit vient en mangeant

Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace.

Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it

There is something about prosperity that brings out the worst in some people.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

I think we're all greedy. Who do you know who says, 'I have enough! I don't need any more!'? It's part of human nature.

War is a crucial, deeply ingrained part of human history. It has to be understood.

I don't think that humankind is worthy of trust when we can't let go of war, draw borders between neighboring countries, seek to become richer than others, find joy in defeating others at sports, and choose someone of the opposite gender based on their appearance.

...In little more than a single century from 1820 to 19450, no less than fifty-nine million human animals were killed in inter-group clashes of one sort or another.... We describe these killings as men behaving "like animals," but if we could find a wild animal that showed signs of acting this way, it would be more precise to describe it as behaving like men.

The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Its really most remarkable how the human race is so seldom satisfied with what its got. Give a man the world and he's pining for the moon.

There's often a natural inclination to want more.

We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything

It is of the nobility of man's soul that he is insatiable: for he hath a benefactor so prone to give, that he delighteth in us for asking. Do not your inclinations tell you that the WORLD is yours? Do you not covet all? Do you not long to have it; to enjoy it; to overcome it? To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not like Pyrrhus the King of Epire, add house to house and lands to lands, that they may get it all?

To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.