“… as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”
Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I
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Edward Gibbon43
English historian and Member of Parliament 1737–1794Related quotes
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)
“One man, by delaying, restored the state to us.
He valued safety more than mob's applause;
Hence now his glory more resplendent grows.”
Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.
Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem;
Ergo plusque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.
Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer
Of Fabius Maximus Cunctator, as quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, Chapter IV (Loeb translation)
“Liberty … is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 58.
Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author
Source: Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859), Ch. XIII : Character — The True Gentleman
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896) Historian, political writer
Statement (1869), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 59.
“Character is simply habit long continued.”
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher