The history of empires is the record of human misery; the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
Interpretation
Gibbon contrasts the impacts of empires with those of scientific advancement on human happiness.
In this quote, Edward Gibbon emphasizes the duality of human progress by highlighting that while empires often lead to suffering and misery, the pursuit and achievements of science contribute to human greatness and well-being. This suggests that the direction of human history can greatly influence the quality of life, urging us to value the advancements in science over the conquests of empires.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of investing in scientific research for societal betterment.
It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.
In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
If in a country, most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, then this country can hardly witness harmony and stability.
Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.
The shrill voices of those who give orders Are full of fear like the squeakings of Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs.... Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but The rulers too.
Yes, and the body has a memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which each objectionable call passes into consciousness—all the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience does not erase the moments lived through, even as we are eternally stupid or everlastingly optimistic, so ready to be inside, among, a part of the games.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.