Date: 1776-1789
"The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and, whilst those princes were shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the repeated failure of their posterity, it was impossible that any idea of hereditary succession should have ...
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"The mind of Maximus was formed in a rougher mould."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the human mind, must exercise our obedience by enjoining practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own hearts"
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"Such a festival must indeed have degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth"
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"Without that artificial help the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas entrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers: the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid o...
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifi...
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1776-1789
"The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations"
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1775, 1776
"'Let Meekness as a dove / 'Brood in man's heart the sacred acts of Love."
preview | full record— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)
Date: February 15, 1776
"The happiness of love, the felicities that flow from a suitable union, his heart shall be a stranger to"
preview | full record— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)