Daily Inspiration Quote by Edward Gibbon

Gibbon is handing the author a crown and a warning at the same time. On the surface, he’s defending the idea that the person who wrote the work is uniquely qualified to assess it: no one else has lived inside the choices, the dead ends, the revisions, the private standards. “Deeply meditated” is doing a lot of work here, signaling not just effort but a kind of solitary intimacy with the material that no reviewer can replicate from the outside.

The subtext is pricklier. Gibbon smuggles in a second claim: the author is “so sincerely interested in the event.” That sincerity cuts both ways. Yes, it implies care, rigor, a stake in getting it right. It also hints at bias so baked-in it’s almost invisible to the writer. The author judges best because the author cannot help but judge: the work is bound up with ego, reputation, and the desire to see one’s own labor crowned as success. Gibbon, who spent years chiseling The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, knew that creative control doesn’t end at publication; it continues as a running argument with your future critics.

Context matters: in the 18th-century Republic of Letters, authorship was becoming both a public performance and a commodity. Gibbon’s line reads like a preemptive defense against hostile reception, but also an assertion of professional authority. He’s carving out a space where the historian’s internal standards matter as much as the crowd’s verdict - while quietly admitting that “best judge” doesn’t mean “most reliable,” only most invested.