Top 100 Decline To Quotes
#1. If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose.
Gillian Flynn
#3. So many die without our caring, decline to silence in rooms beyond hearing. We honor the dead and abhor the dying.
- from the story De Composition
David Benioff
#5. Alzheimer's usually comes later than AIDS, but I decline to call that progress.
Mason Cooley
#6. Artists now decline to go to bed with beauty, fearing they'll wake up with kitsch.
Mike Curran
#7. I decline to go fox hunting (nor did she want her sons William and Harry to be involved in hunting).
Princess Diana
#8. Human beings used to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all
as they pleased. My mother could do the waltz, the tango, the rumba ...
Kurt Vonnegut
#10. Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.
David Foster Wallace
#11. I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.
Pete Seeger
#12. I hereby state, and mean all that I say, that I never have been and never will be a candidate for President; that if nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline; and even if unanimously elected I should decline to serve.
William T. Sherman
#13. We are in receipt of numerous communications concerning the Harper's Ferry affair, and the various topics connected with it ...
We must decline to publish them all,-simply because we see no possible good which they could accomplish.
Melanie Benjamin
#14. Your beauty is an elixir.
Which has given an orphan life.
Lovesick I will die, from the grave I will cry
Should you decline to become my wife.
Vikas Swarup
#15. If someone offers you a gift, and you decline to accept it, the other person still owns that gift. The same is true of insults and verbal attacks.
Steve Pavlina
#16. Fear not the phantom of death,
My Countrymen, for his greatness
And mercy will refuse to approach
Your smallness; and dread not the
Dagger, for it will decline to be
Lodged in your shallow hearts.
Kahlil Gibran
#17. I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.
Colin Wilson
#18. If there is some divine plan that requires my survival and the deaths of all those children in day care, I respectfully decline to participate.
Tim Kreider
#19. I decline to buy repentance at the cost often thousand drachmas.
Demosthenes
#20. If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.
Edward R. Murrow
#21. Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#22. When we decline to talk about what is real simply because it's uncomfortable to do so, we seal our own fate.
Richard Heinberg
#23. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.
Pete Seeger
#24. On the strength of his literary output alone ... any woman of sense would decline to tackle D.H. Lawrence at 1,000 pounds a night.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#25. As long as we decline to allow sick, uninsured people to just lie down and die on the side of the road, everybody has to have insurance for the health care system to work sanely.
Gail Collins
#26. At best you have one of those debilitating conditions which come in many forms, and which some people decline to admit actually exist.
Julian Barnes
#27. Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
H.L. Mencken
#28. When finally you're done speaking you're dumb forever after, and when you're through stirring you go still, but this is no reason to decline to speak and stir or to be what you are.
Saul Bellow
#29. The atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere.
Bill Bryson
#30. Our nuclear free status means that we decline to acquiesce in the strategies of nuclear deterrence. We will not turn a blind eye to them, and pretend that the weapons are no longer a threat. We will not in any way tolerate the testing of nuclear weapons, or their manufacture, or their deployment.
David Lange
#31. When you are the central character in a seemingly boiling pit of "busy-ness" the time will come when the pace of decline cannot be countered. You build yourself the circumstances of ultimate failure by failing to grow, by failing to act on your learnings.
Tony Curl
#32. Fascism was an explosion against intolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world failed to remedy. It was a movement to secure national renaissance by people who felt themselves threatened with decline into decadence and death and were determined to live, and live greatly.
Oswald Mosley
#33. Studies show that recipients of Section 8 vouchers have tended to choose moderately poor neighborhoods that were already on the decline, not low-poverty neighborhoods.
Hanna Rosin
#34. Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.
Philip Roth
#35. I got a feeling that after six years of disappointment, of mediocrity and decline, a slow course correction is not what voters are going to be looking for in 2016.
Rick Perry
#36. The period-effects model refers to influences specific to particular points in time - effects thought to be unique economic or demographic circumstances to which any observable fluctuations in population growth or decline may be attributed.
Brian A. Hoey
#37. A cherry pie is ... ephemeral. From the moment it emerges from the oven it begins a steep decline: from too hot to edible to cold to stale to mouldy, and finally to a post-pie state where only history can tell you that it was once considered food. The pie is a parable of human life.
Nick Harkaway
#38. The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become instead a shield for those who master it.
John Ralston Saul
#39. This is my country. The Russian people are in bit of trouble. Russian court doesn't work. Russian education decline every year. I believe that Russia has a chance to be free. Has a chance. It's difficult, but we must do it.
Boris Nemtsov
#40. The young no longer want to study anything, learning is in decline, the whole world walks on its head, blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss, birds leave the nest before they can fly, the jackass plays the lyre, oxen dance.
Umberto Eco
#41. Margaret Thatcher - a woman I greatly admire - once said that she was not content to manage the decline of a great nation. Neither am I. I am prepared to lead the resurgence of a great nation.
Carly Fiorina
#42. An established company which, in an age demanding innovation, is not able to innovation, is doomed to decline and extinction.
Peter Drucker
#43. Living on through loss seems by contrast as bad or worse; it means experiencing environmental deterioration, steady decline in human well-being, and increasing constraint on future human action consciously and slowly while realizing that they are likely to continue for generations after one is gone.
Frederick Buell
#44. Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
#45. In the 1987 stock market crash, according to the conclusions of the official Brady report, colossal sales of stock index futures by so-called portfolio insurers - whose investment strategies depended entirely on these derivatives - greatly exacerbated the 500-point market decline.
Carol Loomis
#46. As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, the better-off buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, the well-off pay premium rates for private care.
Robert Reich
#47. Since loans are getting more expensive and there's less money available, we're seeing a commensurate decline in growth. Higher costs and lower growth, in turn, translate into lower profits. Figuratively speaking, in the future, we won't be able to run as far or jump as high as we used to.
Paul Achleitner
#48. He reflected on the decay of mankind-the decline of the human race into folly and weakness and rottenness. 'Be a good animal, true to your animal instinct' was his motto.
D.H. Lawrence
#49. If we could honestly promise young couples that we knew how to give them offspring with superior character, why should we assume they would decline? Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will no stopping the public from happily seizing them.
James D. Watson
#50. If inflation-adjusted interest rates decline in a given country, its currency is likely to decline.
Ray Dalio
#51. 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
#52. If Christ is not divine, every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope decline.
Henry Ward Beecher
#53. Planet Hollywood has shrunk from seventy-five locations around the world to just over thirty-five over the past two years. No new Planet Hollywoods are opening, which in turn has caused a 100 percent decline in opportunities for Bruce Willis to play the harmonica.
Jon Stewart
#54. President Obama flew to China a few days ago and announced a joint environmental pact with the communist regime. The United States will reduce its carbon emissions substantially over the next 11 years. China will do absolutely nothing but hope that its emissions decline after 2030.
Erick Erickson
#55. Establish that a Government may decline a provision for its debts, though able to make it, and you overthrow all public morality, you unhinge all the principles that must preserve the limits of free constitutions.
Alexander Hamilton
#56. I believe that lack of empathy is behind many problems, and I believe that it's disrupting our society. In Great Britain, there is a steady decline in the willingness to be truly generous, and by that I don't mean monetary generosity, but friendship and sympathy for others.
J.K. Rowling
#57. The American dream is shrinking because some of our leaders want it to shrink. Decline, in other words, has become a policy objective. And if this decline continues at the current pace, America as we know it will cease to exist. In effect, we will have committed national suicide.
Dinesh D'Souza
#58. An ongoing challenge for Australia is ensuring equity of access to technology. Since the decline in federal funding, many schools are reverting to bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs and this puts the onus back on families to fund devices.
Susan Mann
#59. The decline of manners, the cynical pursuit without shame or restraint of personal advantage and of money characterizes our times, not without exceptions, of course, but more than we ought to be comfortable with.
J. Irwin Miller
#60. This has a lot to do with the unrest in Nigeria, but also with the production loss after the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the decline in Iraq since the 2003 war, and the decline in Venezuelan output since 2002.
Daniel Yergin
#61. The prisoner who had lost faith in the future - his future - was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.
Viktor E. Frankl
#62. There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline.
Andy Grove
#63. Our nation will prosper or decline in direct proportion to our selection of leaders who are guided by the Holy Spirit. If we fail to select Godly leaders our destiny will surely be as that of the Roman Empire.
Ronald Reagan
#64. For most, not knowing how to say no is where their lives decline into a thicket of stress and unhappiness. These individuals are easy to spot, as they constantly take on the role of victim to the world's desires.
Brendon Burchard
#65. If you look at any institution in history - look at the Roman Empire - anything in history, and what it looks like when it's peaking. Look at Apple, and how can you say it's not peaking? ... The thing is, it may take another year or two before it starts to decline, but it has to - everything does.
Trip Hawkins
#66. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.
Joseph Conrad
#67. I started to shed the monstrous aesthetic affectation of my youth so as to make room for the monstrous philistine postures of middle age, but it was some years before I was bold enough to decline an invitation to "Hamlet" on the grounds that I knew who won.
Quentin Crisp
#68. Is there no spiritual leader during this decline - no one to chastise the sinners and bring hope to the disheartened? Although
Anonymous
#69. Inequality makes the pie of things smaller, yet economists measure the size of the pie not by how much substance it contains but by its price. It is entirely possible, therefore, for economists to measure as growth what most people experience as economic decline.
Moshe Adler
#70. Over the last 15 years or so, Manchester has undergone huge transformation - from a city in decline and on its knees to one that is growing, vibrant and confident.
Lucy Powell
#71. 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
#72. It is certainly much easier wholly to decline a passion than to keep it within just bounds and measures; and that which few can moderate almost anybody may prevent.
Pierre Charron
#73. In theory, food writing is an aid or a prelude to actual meals: you read a recipe, and then you cook. In practice - in a 'paradox' that Michael Pollan, among others, has identified - our current gastronomic fantasies, particularly on TV, have coincided with a decline in home cooking.
Bee Wilson
#74. In light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.
Theodore Beale
#75. Life is apogee, apex, decline; life is death - and everything else is open to discussion.
Colin Farrell
#76. In the four hundred years since the last devouring soul appeared; the last man to know the meaning of ecstasy, there has been a constant and steady decline of man in art, in thought, in action. The world is pooped out: there isn't a dry fart left.
Henry Miller
#77. If someone lies down and invites you to trample upon him, you are a remarkable individual if you decline the invitation.
Barbara Mertz
#78. People today read less, take fewer museum trips, and attend fewer concerts. Is that because these activities aren't as fun? The decline ... can be traced, at least in part, to unconscious stimuli that make us live faster.
Frank Partnoy
#79. 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
#80. If an economy is to sustain progress, it must satisfy the basic principles of ecology. If it does not, it will decline and eventually collapse. There is no middle ground
Lester R. Brown
#81. People who want to know how stocks fared on any given day ask, "Where did the Dow close?" I'm more interested in how many stocks went up versus how many went down. These so-called advance/decline numbers paint a more realistic picture.
Peter Lynch
#82. The oldest regretted the decline of the custom of wearing hats, because what did today's youngsters have left to take off their heads when they bumped into the doctor on the street?
Dimitri Verhulst
#83. More to the point, I am fifty-eight. I need grandchildren before my decline. It's not right for two generations of the family to be drooling at the same time.
Tessa Dare
#84. In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be - burdens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring them intense labor and great private loss.
Thomas Jefferson
#85. Decline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself.
Susan Sontag
#86. The Endangered Species Act is the strongest and most effective tool we have to repair the environmental harm that is causing a species to decline.
Norm Dicks
#87. I am so sorry to see the state of reading in such decline. I think it says something really scary and terrible about us as a culture. I think it does have to do with everyone's total global embrace of technology.
Lee Smith
#88. Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.
Martin Jacques
#89. Labor force participation peaked in early 2000, so its decline began well before the Great Recession. A portion of that decline clearly relates to the aging of the baby boom generation. But the pace of decline accelerated with the recession.
Janet Yellen
#91. When we see the human race, we must see before all else environment and food. Historians write about social change without taking these factors into account. This is why it is difficult for them to see the reasons decline and prosperity in society.
Michio Kushi
#92. We need to find three Saudi Arabias just to offset [the] decline.
Matthew Simmons
#93. I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history
whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.
Barack Obama
#94. Because science flourishes, must poesy decline? The complaint serves but to betray the weakness of the class who urge it. True, in an age like the present,-considerably more scientific than poetical,-science substitutes for the smaller poetry of fiction, the great poetry of truth.
Hugh Miller
#95. I think that if anyone bothered to take a survey, they would find a sharp decline in atheism during the winters in Cleveland, Ohio.
Drew Carey
#96. I do think there is this danger that our society has made its peace with decline. I'd like to jolt them out of their complacency a little bit.
Peter Thiel
#97. If you're a conservation biologist in many fields, you're seeing your study subject disappear. People are in the position where they're chronicling radical decline, and that is not a position that conservation biologists want to be in.
Elizabeth Kolbert
#98. Deflation means a slowdown of income growth. Markets shrink, new capital investment and employment also taper off, so wages decline. That is what's happening as deliberate policy in Europe and the United States. Falling or stagnant prices are simply the result of having less income to spend.
Michael Hudson
#99. Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbling youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.
Anton Chekhov
#100. The age of the proof is in decline, it is the hour of 'witness' that is coming, hour of the 'marturioa', very calm and very complete: a hope which seems close to being realised.
Henri De Lubac
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