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.
Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.
If you don't take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You're doing too much, you're being too much in charge. You've got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you're not doing anything.
He knows what it's like to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more.
Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have known all along that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.