The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

—Edward Gibbon

About Edward Gibbon

Portrait of Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was a British essayist, historian and politician. His most important and influential work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, to critical and commercial success. It is...

More quotations from Edward Gibbon

Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus ticket, on the wall of a cell.

—Edward Gibbon

We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. There must be contests, and you must win.

—Edward Gibbon

victory self-mastery

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.

—Edward Gibbon

history crime mankind folly

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

—Edward Gibbon

progress change psychology regression

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

—Edward Gibbon

innocence learning writing knowledge

History

25 Sep 2015 Added