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.
Our prayers are heard by God not according to what we try to be when we pray, but who we are when we are not praying
A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation
But her's was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?
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