quotes about Decay
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Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
See how time makes all grief decay.
-- Adelaide Anne ProcterSource : Adelaide Anne Procter (1858). “Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses”, p.218
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Great nations do not succumb through lost wars, but rather through racial decay and the destruction of their internal order.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson -
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Without adventure civilization is in full decay.
-- Alfred North Whitehead -
Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.
-- Alfred North Whitehead -
Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.
-- Ann CoulterSource : "America’s Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer". www.anncoulter.com. June 25, 2014.
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Decay is quiet but ghastly, explosion is dramatic and dreadful. There's not much to choose between the two of them in reality, and most of our lives have sufficient of both.
-- Anne Roiphe -
The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my provisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensions to work upon mine understanding; and yet they see that invisibly, and I feel that insensibly, the disease prevails.
-- Bill Vaughan -
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[The decay of Logic results from an] untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not.
-- C. S. Lewis -
The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.
-- Carl Sagan -
Whenever a people or an institution forget its hard beginnings, it is beginning to decay.
-- Carl Sandburg -
I was realizing, for the first time, that everything goes on, turns gray, is ruined in the living. That there is no end to our story until death comes and the body decays...
-- Carmen LaforetSource : Carmen Laforet, Edith Grossman (2007). “Nada”
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I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
-- Chief Seattle -
I like thinking about the fragility of the human flesh and our bodies - our decay and eventual death.
-- David LaChapelle -
Time is the speed at which the past decays.
-- David Mitchell -
Sound: always in a state of emergence or decay
-- David Toop -
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Much of the economic decay of southeast Asia (as of many other parts of the world) is undoubtedly due to a heedless and shameful neglect of trees.
-- E. F. Schumacher -
And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
-- Edgar Allan Poe -
All that in this world is great or gay, Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay.
-- Edmund Spenser -
irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.
-- Ellen Glasgow -
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nations decay from within more often than they surrender to outward assault.
-- Ellen Glasgow -
The porcelain rose is not as pretty as the one that decays.
-- Eric G. WilsonSource : Eric G. Wilson (2008). “Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy”, p.110, Macmillan
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People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
-- Eric Hoffer -
I sorrow that all fair things must decay.
-- Fitz-Greene Halleck -
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The first thing you have to do is accept that decay sets in and there's nothing you can do about it.
-- Francesca Annis -
Connection between life and radioactive nuclei is straightforward. No life without tectonic activity, without volcanic activity. And we know very well that geothermal energy is mostly produced by decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium.
-- Garik Israelian -
Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
-- Garrett Hardin -
Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.
-- Gary OldmanSource : "Playboy Interview: Gary Oldman". Interview with David Hochman, June 25, 2014.
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Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
-- George MacDonald -
Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.
-- George MeredithSource : George Meredith (1862). “Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside: With Poems and Ballads”, p.203
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Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
-- George Orwell -
To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.
-- George Orwell -
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Probably the worst thing that has happened in America in my time is the decay of confidence in the courts. No one can be sure any more that in a given case they will uphold the plainest mandate of the Constitution. On the contrary, everyone begins to be more or less convinced in advance that they won't. Judges are chosen not because they know the Constitution and are in favor of it, but precisely because they appear to be against it.
-- H. L. Mencken -
I am in an adolescence in reverse, as mysterious as the first, except that this time I feel it as a decay of the odds that I might live for a while, that I can sleep it off.
-- Harold Brodkey -
People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.
-- Hector Hugh Munro -
Change and decay in all around I see...
-- Henry Francis Lyte -
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I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.
-- Henry Miller -
We must act swiftly in order to halt the rate of decay our planet faces.
-- Henry W. Kendall -
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days, And steal thyself from life by slow decays.
-- Homer -
On every thing are traced decay and change. Look! how the shifting seasons slip away.
-- Isaac McLellanSource : Isaac McLellan (1830). “The Fall of the Indian: With Other Poems”, p.22
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Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last.
-- Isaac RosenbergSource : Isaac Rosenberg (2015). “Delphi Complete Poetry, Plays, Letters and Prose of Isaac Rosenberg (Illustrated)”, p.203, Delphi Classics
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If movies are causing moral decay, then crime ought to be going up, but crime is going down.
-- Jack Valenti -
When urbanity decays, civilization suffers and decays with it.
-- James Norman HallSource : James Norman Hall (1942). “Under a Thatched Roof”
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All solitary enjoyments, quickly fall, or become painful, so that, perhaps, no more insufferable misery can be conceived than that which must follow incommunicable privileges. Only imagine a human being condemned to perpetual youth while all around him decay and die. O, how sincerely would he call upon death for deliverance!
-- James Sharp -
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In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a gaurantee of impunity.
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together.
-- Jean-Luc Godard -
She seemed to belong to that pagan, primitive kingdom of birds and forests where everything was infinitely abundant, wild, blooming, and royal in its perpetual decay, death, and rebirth; illicit and clashing with the human world.
-- Jerzy KosinskiSource : Jerzy Kosinski (2007). “The Painted Bird”, p.70, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
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The excrement bubbles, the century slime decays, and the brainwashing government lackeys would have us say it's under control.
-- Jethro Tull -
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The beginning is always so fine!! But decay soon follows. A degeneration into the tired old situation. The rot sets in ... there is only the beauty of the start!
-- Jhonen VasquezSource : "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac". Comic book series by Jhonen Vasquez, August 1995 – January 1997.
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Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and supersededby elements of lower quality.
-- Johan Huizinga -
All decays begin in the closet; no heart thrives with out much secret converse with God, and nothing will make amends for the want of it.
-- John BerridgeSource : John Berridge (1838). “The works of the Rev. John Berridge ... with an enlarged memoir of his life: numerous letters, anecdotes ... and his original Sion's songs”, p.424
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Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.
-- John Dryden -
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Most youth still hold the same values of their parents…if we do not alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay.
-- John Goodlad -
Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.
-- John Henry NewmanSource : John Henry Newman (1868). “Works”, p.326
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Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.
-- John Updike -
Things begin, things decay, and you've got to find a way to be okay.
-- Jon Brion -
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There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.
-- Joseph Addison -
Beware of suretyship for thy best friend; he that payeth another man's debt seeketh his own decay.
-- Joseph Jekyll -
I will now direct the attention of scientists to a previously unnoticed cause which brings about the metamorphosis and decomposition phenomena which are usually called decay, putrefaction, rotting, fermentation and moldering. This cause is the ability possessed by a body engaged in decomposition or combination, i.e. in chemical action, to give rise in a body in contact with it the same ability to undergo the same change which it experiences itself.
-- Justus von Liebig -
Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve.
-- Karen Thompson WalkerSource : Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.203, Simon and Schuster
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But I believe there is a decay that is eroding America, and as a result, God begins to disappear from our society.
-- Lee Greenwood -
Surely revival delays because prayer decays.
-- Leonard Ravenhill -
All perishes, all decays, all is born again.
-- Leonid AndreyevSource : Leonid Andreyev (1911). “King-Hunger: Translated from the Russian by Eugene M. Kayden”
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We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body.
-- Lucretius -
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Pessimism negates the existing world. Yet its negating is ambiguous. It can simply will decay and nothingness, but it can also renounce what exists and thus open a path for a new formation of the world.
-- Martin Heidegger -
You guard against decay, in general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move.
-- Mary Daly -
The point is that no matter what you choose to do with your body when you die, it won't, ultimately, be very appealing. If you are inclined to donate yourself to science, you should not let images of dissection or dismemberment put you off. They are no more or less gruesome, in my opinion, than ordinary decay or the sewing shut of your jaws via your nostrils for a funeral viewing.
-- Mary RoachSource : Mary Roach (2004). “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”, p.82, W. W. Norton & Company
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The familiarities of the gaming-table contribute very much to the decay of politeness ... The pouts and quarrels that naturally arise from disputes must put an end to all complaisance, or even good will towards one another.
-- Mary Wortley Montagu -
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All things that have form eventually decay." -Orochimaru
-- Masashi Kishimoto -
We cannot rest and sit down lest we rust and decay. Health is maintained only through work. And as it is with all life so it is with science. We are always struggling from the relative to the absolute.
-- Max Planck -
For the first time in my life, I felt that a wave, a justice was sweeping away a deep-seated decay without any indulgence. I dearly wished that it would keep going without hesitation or deviation, in a spirit of purity forever.
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings
-- Octavio Paz -
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Wealth accumulates, and men decay.
-- Oliver GoldsmithSource : The Deserted Village l. 51 (1770)
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Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.
-- Oscar Wilde -
Homosexuality is not a civil right. Its rise almost always is accompanied, as in the Weimar Republic, with a decay of society and a collapse of its basic cinder block, the family.
-- Pat Buchanan -
Much if not all we know about the complex mechanism responsible for the development (and stagnation) of productive forces, and for the rise and decay of social organizations, is the result of the analytical work undertaken by Marx and by those whom he inspired.
-- Paul A. BaranSource : Paul A. Baran (1968). “Political Econ of Growth”, p.5, NYU Press
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In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.
-- Plutarch -
All things are subject to decay and change...
-- PolybiusSource : Polybius (1812). “The General History of the Wars of the Romans”, p.401
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Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.
-- Richard M. Weaver -
All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
-- Richard Whately -
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There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
-- Robinson Jeffers -
Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.
-- Sallust -
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
-- Samuel Smiles -
There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind.
-- Sarah Josepha Hale -
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The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions.
-- Saul -
The older I get, the more I want to do. It beats death, decay or golf in unfortunate trousers. Peace and quiet depress me.
-- Simon Schama -
Talk of the imperial decay of your invalid port. Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession.
-- Stephen PotterSource : "One-Upmanship". Book by Stephen Potter, p. 143, 1952.
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All good things vanish in less than a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when you leav'st to appear.
-- Thomas NashSource : Thomas Nash (1964). “Pierce Penniless his supplication to the Devil: Summer's last will and testament. The terrors of the night. The unfortunate traveller, and selected writings”
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Life is one long decay, no? There's a lot of beauty in it. Like the patina in an old city.
-- Urs Fischer -
I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust
-- Vladimir Nabokov -
Time drops in decay Like a candle burnt out. And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; But, kindly old rout Of the fire-born moods, You pass not away.
-- William Butler Yeats -
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We know that our senses are subject to decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't believe.
-- William Henry HudsonSource : William Henry Hudson (1923). “The Collected Works of W. H. Hudson: A traveller in little things”
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Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day.
-- William Shakespeare -
It seems that the whole world is beginning to decay, and that its putrefaction has chosen to spread outward from here, from the land of the Pashtuns, where desertification proceeds at a steady, implacable crawl even in the consciences and intellects of men.
-- Yasmina Khadra -
...of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.
-- Yukio Mishima -