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"The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events."
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Explore more quotes by Edward Gibbon

"The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event."

"It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work."

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

"The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature."

"The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise."

"But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
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"I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object."

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity " I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly."

"Beauty is subjective. You know how sometimes what makes a person attractive is the way they make you laugh or how it seems like they can read your mind?"

"There is a very delicate line between pornography and beauty. A naked woman is not necessarily pornographic; a naked man is not necessarily pornographic. A beautiful man, a beautiful woman, naked, can be examples of beauty, of health, of proportion. They are the most glorious products of nature. If a deer can be naked and beautiful-and nobody thinks the deer is pornographic-then why should it be that a naked man or woman cannot be just seen as beautiful?"

"We ascribe beauty to that which is simple which has no superfluous parts which exactly answers its ends."

"I've alway found that the most beautiful people, truly beautiful inside and out, are the ones who are quietly unaware of their effect."

"A few flat clouds folded themselves like crepes over fillings of apricot sky. Pompadours of supper-time smoke billowed from chimneys, separating into girlish pigtails as the breeze combed them out, above the slate rooftops. Chestnut blossoms, weary from having been admired all day, wore faint smiles of anticipation."

"One thing, however, did become clear to him-why so many perfect works of art did not please him at all, why they were almost hateful and boring to him, in spite of a certain undeniable beauty. Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing-mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery."
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