Edward Gibbons wrote in his “Epitaph of Ancient Athens,” that “In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security, they wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all, security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally determined not to give to society, but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.” *
Will history one day say the same for us?
Van Hipp Sr.
Walterboro
* Editor’s note: There has been discussion whether Gibbons (1737-1794), an English historian whose most famous writing is The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote this passage, or whether this was a quote from an edited version of a lecture Margaret Thatcher gave at Hillsdale College, located in Holland, Mich., in 1994, in which she was summarizing Gibbons. It might also be a paraphrasing from a writing of classicist and educator Edith Hamilton, (1867-1963) a writer on mythology. (Sources: Wikipedia; on Margaret Thatcher: http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/file/archives/pdf/1995_03_Imprimis.pdf)
