“Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies fictitious or exaggerated.”

—  Edward Gibbon

Vol. 1, Chap. 10.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of his…" by Edward Gibbon?
Edward Gibbon photo
Edward Gibbon43
English historian and Member of Parliament 1737–1794

Related quotes

Dan Brown photo

“Throughout history, every period of enlightenment has been accompanied by darkness, pushing in opposition. Such are laws of nature and balance.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

“The uncommon man has done the impossible and there has been that much more light in the world because of it. Children respond to heroes by thinking creatively and sometimes in breaking beyond the bounds of the impossible in their turn, and so becoming heroes themselves.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 3.13
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo

“The facts, indeed, connected with this gloomy department of statistics show that the most valuable period of human life—that in which a man is producing more than he is consuming—is that which provides the greatest number of victims.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) (1802–1871) Scottish publisher and writer

Source: Sanitary Economy (1850), p. 18

“When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find that far more, and far more hideous, crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.”

C. P. Snow (1905–1980) British writer

Public Affairs (London: Macmillan, 1971) p. 195

Gertrude Stein photo

“Growing has no connection with audience.
Audience has no connection with identity.
Identity has no connection with a universe.
A universe has no connection with human nature.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

The Geographical History of America (1936)

Cees Nooteboom photo

“Every period in history has it's own punishments, and ours has a multitude.”

Cees Nooteboom book The Following Story

The Following Story (1991)

Carl Sagan photo

“The history of science—especially physics—has in part been the tension between the natural tendency to project our everyday experience on the universe and the universe's noncompliance…”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

Robert Fripp photo

“It is difficult to exaggerate the power of habit.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

Guitar Craft Monograph III: Aphorisms, Oct. 27 1988

Edwidge Danticat photo

“Well, I think that when I’m writing about Haiti, I’m just writing one long, ongoing story. But I really did feel, like a lot of people did, that after the earthquake, there were suddenly two Haitis: the Haiti of before the earthquake and the Haiti of after the earthquake. So I feel that I’ve been writing about the first one much longer. And writing about the earthquake… it’s been such a short period of time and it’s still such a raw experience that the few things that I’ve written about it, I feel like I’ve written them to process it myself.”

Edwidge Danticat (1969) Novelist, short story writer, memoirist

On how she views Haiti since a major earthquake in in “An Interview | Edwidge Danticat” http://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/ in The Brooklyn Review (Fall 2018) <br class="br">Interviews

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 32, January 13, 1944.

Related topics