Related:

• The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
  -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. lxviii...
• All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.
  -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. lxxi...
• Amiable weaknesses of human nature. -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap.
  xiv...
• Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap.
  xi...
• In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
  -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. xlviii...
• Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
  -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. lxxi...
• The reign of Antoninus is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history, which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
  -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. iii...
• The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity
  the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloiste...