Edward Gibbon Quote

The fabric of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labours of successive ages, could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the calamity.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The 2. Ed. - London, W. Strahan 1776-1788 (ed. 1781)