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'I have never doubted the truth of signs, Adso; they are the only things man has with which to orient himself in the world. What I did not understand is the relation among signs.... I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe.' 'But in imagining an erroneous order you still found something....' 'What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.... The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.' Umberto Eco		Monday May 11, 2026
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Edward Gibbon

Quote Author: Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737 - January 16, 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The History is known principally for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open denigration of organized religion, though the extent of this is disputed by some critics.

Other Edward Gibbon Quotes

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day and hour with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.

I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes.

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of the genius.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Of London: Crowds without company, dissipation without pleasure.

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverable lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.

In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. [96180 A.D.]

Amiable weaknesses of human nature.

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.

The first of earthly blessings, independence.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

I saw and loved.

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.

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.

It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot 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.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

... vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

On the approach of spring I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.