Ruins Quotes

• A ruin should always be protected but never repaired - thus may we witness full the lingering legacies of the past.

  Walter Scott

  War, Past, Legacy

  5 Copy quote

• Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.

  Rumi

  Spiritual, Positive Thinking, Hardship

  53 Copy quote

• What's old collapses, times change, And new life blossoms in the ruins.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Inspirational, Courage, New Life

  "William Tell". Play by Friedrich Schiller (Act IV, Scene II), 1804.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ruin is when man-made has become part of nature.

  Marco Casagrande

  Nature, Men, Made

  Marco Casagrande (2012). “Biourban Acupuncture. Treasure Hill of Taipei to Artena”, p.9, International Society of Biourbanism

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some ruins of ancient times are much more beautiful than the best buildings of modern eras!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Beautiful, Eras, Ancient

  6 Copy quote

• It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

  Warren Buffett

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Success

  Richard J. Connors, Warren Buffett (2010). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.5, John Wiley & Sons

  124 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.

  Isak Dinesen

  Wise, Past, Worry

  103 Copy quote

• The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.

  William Blake

  Time, Eternity, Mansions

  William Blake (2008). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.705, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Inspirational, Tough Times, Crumbling

  26 Copy quote

• History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?

  Washington Irving

  Fall, Character, Dust

  Washington Irving (2006). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book”, p.144, Penguin

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• The broken eggshell of a civilization which time has hatched and devoured.

  Julia Ward Howe

  Civilization, Broken, Eggshells

  Julia Ward Howe (1868). “From the Oak to the Olive: A Plain Record of a Pleasant Journey”, p.171

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love among the ruins... I'll tell you something, my friend: Weird love's better than no love at all.

  Stephen King

  My Friends, No Love

  Stephen King (2010). “The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel”, p.248, Simon and Schuster

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can reconstruct the picture from chaos and memory's ruins.

  Kay Boyle

  Memories, Chaos, Reconstruction

  15 Copy quote

• A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.

  Lord Byron

  Change, Years, Scare

  27 Copy quote

• Should the whole frame of nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.

  Joseph Addison

  Nature, Fall, Confusion

  Translation of Horace Odes bk. 3, ode 3.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Eye, Faces, Smooth

  20 Copy quote

• Ruin and recovering are both from within.

  Epictetus

  Recovering

  20 Copy quote

• But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.

  Lauren Oliver

  Cities, Feet, Desire

  Lauren Oliver (2015). “Delirium Trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, Requiem”, p.341, Hachette UK

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's like . . . time is flowing backward. We're caveman archeologists in the ruins of the future.

  Dan Wells

  9 Copy quote

• We moralize among ruins.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Morality

  Benjamin Disraeli (1847). “Works”, p.257

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may seem competent, but by the end of next century there will be new deserts, new ruins.

  Edward Bond

  Insecurity, Desert, Literature

  12 Copy quote

• Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Love, Literature, Springtime

  Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmuller (1980). “The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857”, p.83, Harvard University Press

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Success, Failure, Heaven

  8 Copy quote

• The body is the soul's house. Shouldn't we therefore take care of our house so that it doesn't fall into ruin?

  Philo

  Fall, House, Soul

  38 Copy quote

• Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

  George Washington

  Peace, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington (1783). “A circular Letter ... to ... W. Greene, Governor ... of Rhode Island”, p.11

  16 Copy quote

  Show source