The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
Interpretation
The quote addresses hypocrisy in human behavior, where people criticize others for faults they themselves possess.
Edward Gibbon's quote highlights the hypocrisy prevalent in human nature, where individuals are quick to condemn others for flaws or shortcomings that they themselves exhibit but choose to overlook. This selective judgment often hinges on arbitrary distinctions such as age or social status, allowing the individual to maintain a moral high ground while still engaging in the same behaviors they decry in others. The quote serves as a reminder of the need for self-awareness and consistency in our moral judgments.
In practice
In a discussion about ethics, this quote can be referenced to illustrate the concept of hypocrisy among critics.
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.
To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of dead, human conservatism that tends to form around the Church the way barnacles gather on the hull of a ship, all this talk about dynamism sounds foolish.
Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Italian, even though I'm also more exposed.
Hell is the backdrop that reveals the profound and unbelievable grace of the cross. It brings to light the enormity of our sin and therefore portrays the undeserved favor of God in full color.
Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations.
That's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you're flawed and broken and alone instead of whole.
I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you.
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