Decay Quotes - Page 16

• 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

  Military, War, States

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• National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

  Samuel Smiles

  Selfish, Individuality, Progress

  Samuel Smiles (1861). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.16

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• Fall is not the end of the gardening year; it is the start of next year's growing season. The mulch you lay down will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants.

  Thalassa Cruso

  Flower, Fall, Winter

  Thalassa Cruso (1990). “The Gardening Year”, Lyons Press

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• Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
  Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
  Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
  The drooping cherry orchards of October
  Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
  Russet and orange: all things now decay;
  Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
  And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

  Siegfried Sassoon

  Autumn, Blue, Flames

  Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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• For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

  Paul the Apostle

  Children, Pain, Frustration

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• Everything goes through the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, decay and death. But all of this is an illusion. Everything we see is an illusion.

  Frederick Lenz

  Ignorance, Growth, Birth

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• Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades Sink in the trial.

  William Shakespeare

  Horse, Fall, Simple

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Making Sense of Julius Caesar! a Students Guide to Shakespeare's Play (Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelling)”, p.173, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Only our love hath no decay; this, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, running it never runs from us away, but truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

  John Donne

  Love, Running, Yesterday

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'The Anniversary'

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• Summe up at night what thou hast done by day; And in the morning what thou hast to do. Dresse and undresse thy soul; mark the decay And growth of it; if, with thy watch, that too Be down then winde up both; since we shall be Most surely judg'd, make thy accounts agree.

  George Herbert

  Morning, Night, Soul

  George Herbert (1861). “The Poetical Works of G. H. and R. Heber. With Memoir”, p.16

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• Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.

  Ben Jonson

  Sports, Lust, Done

  Ben Jonson (1838). “The Works of Ben Jonson”, p.740

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• But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey.

  Alexander Pope

  Winter, Blow, Dew

  Alexander Pope (1822). “The Works of Alexander Pope”, p.142

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• Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Business, Haste, Proud

  Oliver Goldsmith (1871). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, select poems and comedies, with intr., notes and a life by J.F. Waller”, p.209

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• All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.

  Richard Whately

  Wall, Support, Fraud

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• A husband and wife ought to continue united so long as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Husband, Law, Long

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume”

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• We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body.

  Lucretius

  Strength, Mind, Body

  "De Rerum Natura". III. 446,

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• You cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does, she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she might fall and defile her head in dust if you leave her without help at some moments in her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any.

  John Ruskin

  Girl, Flower, Fall

  John Ruskin (1894). “Essays and Letters Selected from the Writings of John Ruskin”

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• I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Wall, Believe, Heart

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• You guard against decay, in general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move.

  Mary Daly

  Moving, Movement, Continuing

  "The Thin Thread of Conversation: an interview with Mary Daly". Interview with Catherine Madsen, www.crosscurrents.org.

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• The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout all Christendom, and which has been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious.

  Brigham Young

  Christian, Religious, Roots

  Brigham Young (1867). “Journal of Discourses”, p.128

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• If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Years, Civilization, Honor

  Theodore Roosevelt (1897). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: American ideals, with a biographical sketch by F. V. Greene. Administration”

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• Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Sometimes, Proof, Certain

  Karen Thompson Walker (2014). “The Age of Miracles”, p.203, Simon and Schuster

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• Yes, Philadelphia is horrible, but in a very interesting way. There were places there that had been allowed to decay, where there was so much fear and crime that just for a moment there was an opening to another world. It was fear, but it was so strong, and so magical, like a magnet, that your imagination was always sparking in PhiladelphiaI just have to think of Philadelphia now, and I get ideas, I hear the wind, and I'm off into the darkness somewhere.

  David Lynch

  Strong, Thinking, Wind

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• My Faith is larger than the Hills— So when the Hills decay— My Faith must take the Purple Wheel To show the Sun the way— 'Tis first He steps upon the Vane— And then — upon the Hill— And then abroad the World He go To do His Golden Will— And if His Yellow feet should miss— The Bird would not arise— The Flowers would slumber on their Stems— No Bells have Paradise— How dare I, therefore, stint a faith On which so vast depends— Lest Firmament should fail for me— The Rivet in the Bands

  Emily Dickinson

  Faith, Flower, Purple

  Emily Dickinson, Cristanne Miller (2016). “Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them”, p.243, Harvard University Press

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• Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. ... Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it.

  Michio Kaku

  Blessed, Fate, Two

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• 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

  Depressing, Golf, Want

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