Edward Gibbon Quote

The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skillful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion...

The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire... The Second Edition (ed. 1788)