When some future historian writes a book called The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, laying the cause at the feet of Twitter for its cultivating tens of millions of scatterbrains, the author can justifiably say, “Edward Gibbon warned us”:
Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Through neglect of this rule, gross ignorance often disgraces great readers; who, by skipping hastily and irregularly from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole.
(Quoted from page 396 of The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon. B. Blake Publisher, 1837.)
For a brief biography of Edward Gibbon, click here. For images of or relating to Edward Gibbon, click here.
Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Through neglect of this rule, gross ignorance often disgraces great readers; who, by skipping hastily and irregularly from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole.
(Quoted from page 396 of The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon. B. Blake Publisher, 1837.)
For a brief biography of Edward Gibbon, click here. For images of or relating to Edward Gibbon, click here.
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