I Sighed As A Lover, I Obeyed

From The Paths Of Blood (and Such Is The History Of Nations) I Cannot Refuse To Turn Aside To Gather Some Flowers Of Science Or Virtue.

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.

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.

Sixty Thousand Blacks Are Annually Embarked From The Coast Of Guinea, Never To Return To Their Native Country; But They Are Embarked In Chains: And This Constant Emigration, Which, In The Space Of Two Centuries, Might Have Furnished Armies To Overrun The Globe, Accuses The Guilt Of Europe And The Weakness Of Africa.

If We Are More Affected By The Ruin Of A Palace Than By The Conflagration Of A Cottage, Our Humanity Must Have Formed A Very Erroneous Estimate Of The Miseries Of Human Life.