Edward Gibbon Quotes

I love history, doesn't matter what era, I'm fascinated.

Learning from history is impossible if the narrative is wrong.

The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history.

[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does not exist.

The Court is making the preposterous assumption that the People of the United States somehow silently redefined marriage in 1868 when they ratified the 14th Amendment.

History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present. It's not neutral. I would be very surprised if people with a different view of the present, don't take issue with my view of the past. I just hope that people deal with the content of the film.

All the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences.

History proves nothing because it contains everything.

History is a better guide than good intentions.

The scientific observer of the realm of nature is in a sense naturally and inevitably disinterested. At least, nothing in the natural scene can arouse his bias. Furthermore, he stands completely outside of the natural so that his mind, whatever his limitations, approximates pure mind. The observer of the realm of history cannot be disinterested in the same way, for two reasons: first, he must look at history from some locus in history; secondly, he is to a certain degree engaged in its ideological conflicts.

History in the making is a very uncertain thing. It might be better to wait till the South American republic has got through withits twenty-fifth revolution before reading much about it. When it is over, some one whose business it is, will be sure to give you in a digested form all that it concerns you to know, and save you trouble, confusion, and time. If you will follow this plan, you will be surprised to find how new and fresh your interest in what you read will become.

History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning ofthings, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,--when did burdock and plantain sprout first?

History thus becomes largely a study of character. Insight into temperament is hardly less important than the probing of "original materials."

Well, let's see. There's -- of course -- in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.

History does not usually make real sense until long afterward.

One age cannot be completely understood if all the others are not understood. The song of history can only be sung as a whole.

If the country is to survive as a democracy it will depend on voters who understand how our political institutions have evolved and the events that went into their creation. A nation's sense of its history is indistinguishable from its social cohesion.

I'm hard pressed to give an example on the spot of a president who explicitly spoke of the vindication of history, but I'm confident that there are many such examples.

Because we are in the world, we are condemned to meaning, and we cannot do or say anything without its acquiring a name in history.

The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes. Perhaps the only real value of history lies in considering this endlessly varied play between the essence and the accidents.

The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

The Jew has his anchorage not in place but in time, in his highly developed sense of history as personal context. Six thousand years of self-awareness are a homeland.