"The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise."

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More quotes from: Edward Gibbon

• "A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute. "
• "All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance. "
• "Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and ..."
• "Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. "
• "Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. "
• "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of ..."
• "Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition. "
• "I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense ..."
• "I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no ..."
• "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son. "
• "I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed ..."
• "I was never less alone than when by myself. "
• "It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, ..."
• "My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches ..."
• "My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of ..."
• "Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. "
• "Our work is the presentation of our capabilities. "
• "Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. "
• "Style is the image of character. "
• "The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply ..."
• "The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality ..."

• "The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of ..."
• "The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. "
• "The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events. "
• "The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive ..."
• "The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. "
• "Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole ..."
• "Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking,unskilled in the arts of composition, ..."
• "We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win. "