Civilization Decline Quotes

#1. How could human civilization decline so far, yet seem so normal in many respects? And is it scientifically possible that a blight could wipe out all edible

Kip S. Thorne

#2. As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

#3. Perhaps the greatest Maya mystery of all is the cause of the civilization's abrupt decline. The last dated stela erected at Tikal was put up in A.D. 869; the last anywhere in the Maya world, in 909.

David Roberts

#4. The state of our civilization manifests itself both in the non-problems that terrify us beyond all reason - rising sea levels - and in the real problems we pay no heed to [population decline] ... In reality, much of the planet will be uninhabited long before it's uninhabitable

Mark Steyn

#5. Perhaps Western civilization is in a post-decline phase, or maybe the decline is just taking a really long time, like the Roman Empire's did. The Romans had gladiators and Christian-hungry lions and that sort of thing. We have MTV.

Tom Shales

#6. The civilization of the West, which was brilliant by virtue of its scientific perfection for a long time, and which subjugated the whole world with the products of this science to its states and nations, is now bankrupt and in decline.

Hassan Al-Banna

#7. The entire empire has sunk into a quagmire of extravagance from which they cannot extricate themselves.

Liu Cixin

#8. A civilization begins to decline the moment Life becomes its sole obsession.

Emil Cioran

#9. A great deal of stupidity has chipped away at the massive advantages of Western civilization, which could terminally decline if it remains on the current path. But these problems can be solved - and swiftly - if the right leaders emerge.

Paul Singer

#10. My theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

Ludwig Von Mises

#11. As people ages, they confuse changes in themselves with changes in the world, and changes in the world with moral decline - the illusion of the good old days. And so every generation believes that the kids today are degrading the language and taking civilization down with it

Steven Pinker

#12. There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.

Adam Smith

#13. Nothing like a few restful weeks contemplating the decline of civilization to restore the humors. What I did on my summer vacation was listen to a lot of people talk about the decline of practically everything - you could call it the leisure of the theory class.

Molly Ivins

#14. Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.

Herbert Read

#15. For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor - and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.

Steven Pinker

#16. Anguish over the decline of civilization is the affliction of a reactionary.
The democrat cannot lament the disappearance of something of which he is ignorant.

Nicolas Gomez Davila

#17. Proud houses fall into decline and great cities pass into ruin. The stories of those things are lost to forgotten languages and moth-eaten scrolls. Vine and root grapple with the rune carved in stone, and rust carries away, fleck by fleck, the great gates of iron.

William Timothy Murray

#18. The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said, 'A civilization is judged only in its decline.' That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players.

Nikki Giovanni

#19. I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.

Michel De Montaigne

#20. The acceptance of homosexuality is the last step in the decline of Gentile civilization,

Pat Robertson

#21. When they come to chronicle the decline of this civilization," he said, "they're going to wonder why we were debating flag burning, abortion, and broccoli eating instead of the fundamental issues of how we live and use the environment.

James Howard Kunstler

#22. When I was young I used to read about the decline of Western civilization, and I decided it was something I would like to make a contribution to.

George Carlin

#23. A civilization is always judged in its decline.

Melvin B. Tolson

#24. I have the not altogether unsatisfying impression that civilisation is collapsing around me.
Is it my age, I wonder, or the age we live in? I am not sure. Civilisations do collapse, after all, but on the other hand people grow old with rather greater frequency.

Theodore Dalrymple

#25. The first sign on a declining civilization is a decline in the arts.

Diana Palmer

#26. Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.

Robert Payne

#27. To keep any great nation up to a high standard of civilization there must be enough superior characters to hold the balance of power, but the very moment the balance of power gets into the hands of second-rate men and women, a decline of that nation is inevitable.

Christian D. Larson

#28. The decline and fall of a civilization is barely noticed by most of its citizens.

James Cook

#29. Osbert was the only one who didn't seem suspicious. He was so interested in the Decline of Western Civilization that he missed the version of it taking place under his nose.

Meg Rosoff

#30. I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.

E.L. Konigsburg

#31. It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring.

Samuel P. Huntington

#32. While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure sign of a civilization in decline.

Henry Rollins

#33. Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.

Anais Nin

#34. Classical Islamic civilization had long passed its prime when the Mongols arrived on the scene in the thirteenth century, and was already in an advance state of what most historians would call decline.

Bernard Lewis

#35. To the masses, the catchwords of Socialism sound so enticing ... so they will continue to work for Socialism, helping thereby to bring about the inevitable decline of the civilization which the nations of the West have taken thousands of years to build up.

Ludwig Von Mises