The history of empires is the record of human misery; the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
Interpretation
Gibbon contrasts the impacts of empires with those of scientific advancement on human happiness.
In this quote, Edward Gibbon emphasizes the duality of human progress by highlighting that while empires often lead to suffering and misery, the pursuit and achievements of science contribute to human greatness and well-being. This suggests that the direction of human history can greatly influence the quality of life, urging us to value the advancements in science over the conquests of empires.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of investing in scientific research for societal betterment.
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.
Whatever you perceive, you always make a story with yourself as the main character, and that dictates your life. Then when you read 'The Four Agreements', you hear another voice beneath the story, the voice that comes from your integrity, your spirit.
When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don't actually "become" a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
A lot of leftists think it is soccer's fault that people don't think, while most rightists are convinced that soccer is a proof that people think with their feet.
The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration.
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