Top 100 Quotes About Decay
#1. Idleness would have seemed not only a sign of moral decay, but an affront to the natural order of things.
Diana Gabaldon
#2. History teaches us, however, that when the times are ripe for change and the government refuses or is unable to change, either society starts to decay or a revolution begins.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#3. Even gods decay. Like, in 1890 somebody sold off thousands of mummified Ancient Egyptian sacred cats - _for fertilizer_. Get the point? Constancy isn't.
Jonathan Gash
#4. Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.
Samuel Johnson
#5. There is a rising generation in this country who do not know God because of a general decay of religion.
Arthur Middleton
#6. Throwing up was no big deal. It was a lot less painful than hemorrhoids or tooth decay, and more refined than diarrhea
Haruki Murakami
#7. Nero would be long since forgotten without his outbursts of bloody clowning. ~ Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay
Emil Cioran
#8. 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
#9. Bond investors are the vampires of the investment world. They love decay, recession - anything that leads to low inflation and the protection of the real value of their loans.
Bill Gross
#10. To find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.
Paul Kalanithi
#11. We're organisms; we're conceived, we're born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.
William M. Bass
#12. No government can be strong and flourishing while the national character is weak and degraded. A government must flourish and decay with its subjects; and, when a prince makes a law or performs an action which has a tendency to injure the character or prosperity of the nation, he injures himself.
Benjamin Robbins Curtis
#13. [the photographer] can be considered a kind of disembodied burrowing eye, a conspirator against time and its hammers. His work, print after print of it, seems to call to be shown before the decay which it portrays flattens all ... Here are the records of the age before an imminent collapse.
Jack Kerouac
#14. Every winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.
Charles Kingsley
#15. Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new
William Shakespeare
#16. Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#17. If you're constantly being reminded of the ways in which your history and your narrative as a people were rooted in loss and decay, then you're in deep trouble. Once you make a certain kind of peace with the past, then you should be completely oriented towards speculation about the future.
Kerry James Marshall
#18. The winds must come from somewhere when they blow ... There must be reasons why the leaves decay.
(From Auden's If I Could Tell You
Alexander McCall Smith
#19. Seriously, 'Honey Boo Boo' is the decay of Western civilization. Just because so many people watch the show doesn't mean it's good.
Adam Levine
#20. Backward we traveled to reclaim the day
Before we fell, like Icarus, undone;
All we find are altars in decay
And profane words scrawled black across the sun.
From the poem "Doom of the Exiles", written 16 April 1954
Sylvia Plath
#21. The problem with living so long is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay ... but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think.
Derek Landy
#22. They spoke of age and decay. Of atrophy and ruin. Of the inevitability of loss and the futility of hope.
Stephen Lloyd Jones
#23. Rahul's great idea, he said that having either darkness or too much white made someone's sanity decay and made them easier to manipulate. In the dark, though, they felt they could hide, and in Rahul's words ... 'They can hide, but they can't run' he used that like a mantra.
Mercy Cortez
#24. In the depths of the moor, the peat may be seen riven like floes of ice, and the rifts are sometimes twelve to fourteen feet deep, cut through black vegetable matter, the product of decay of plants through countless generations.
Sabine Baring-Gould
#25. Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten when their noblest and most enduring works decay?
Decimius Magnus Ausonius
#26. The Beautiful chariots of kings wear out, This body too undergoes decay. But the Dhamma of the good does not decay: So the good proclaim along with the good.
Gautama Buddha
#27. Our works decay and disappear but God gentlest works stay looking down on the ruins we toil to rear.
Walter Smith
#28. All beauteous things for which we live By laws of space and time decay. But Oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die.
William Johnson Cory
#29. our bodies decay and we are just dust on the wind, our souls will dance together, enjoying the rest of eternity as a single entity." I
E.L. Todd
#30. Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
Ambrose Bierce
#31. Just like those other black holes from outer space, Hollywood is postmodern to this extent: it has no center, only a spreading dead zone of exhaustion, inertia, and brilliant decay.
Arthur Kroker
#32. Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown'd.
John Donne
#33. If a book remained roadblocked long enough, it began to decay, to fall apart; all the little tricks and illusions started to show. He
Stephen King
#34. I grow and I shrink. I run and I crawl.
Follow my voice, though I have none at all.
I never do leave here, but I travel around
I float through the sky and I creep through the ground.
I keep my cache in a vault although I have no wealth,
Seek my decay to safeguard your health.
Richelle Mead
#35. If God was so literal in his resurrections, humanity would be brought back in a state of decay so advanced that the marks of dissection would seem minor in comparison.
Helene Wecker
#36. Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.
Blaise Pascal
#37. If Time have any wrinkle graven there; If any, be a satire to decay, And make time's spoils despised every where. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life, So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
William Shakespeare
#38. This is solute, which will cause every animal killed by Halo action to instantly decay into component molecules. This will avert an ecological miasma. But it could also be construed as a way to hide a tremendous crime from later investigators.
Greg Bear
#39. 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 Nash
#40. the poorly typed lines, the symbols and abbreviations of Internet chat that make such language seem so much like a process of decay. As
Garth Greenwell
#41. And in the afternoon they entered a land - but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.
George Washington Cable
#42. Hold in, hold in, one crack and the wall is breached. I need now to be finite, self-contained, to stop this bacterial grief dividing and multiplying till its weight is the weight of the world. Bacteria: agents of putrefaction. My father's decay lodged in me.
Jeanette Winterson
#43. Female beauties are as fickle in their faces as in their minds; though casualties should spare them, age brings in a necessity of decay.
Robert Boyle
#44. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.
Francis Bacon
#45. The fertility cycle is a cycle entirely of living creatures passing again and again through birth, growth, maturity, death, and decay.
Wendell Berry
#46. A dry maple leaf has come off and is falling to the earth; its movement is exactly like a butterfly's flight. Isn't it strange? Gloom and decay - like brightness and life.
Ivan Turgenev
#47. Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
#49. There is an Eye that never sleeps, Beneath the wind of night. There is an ear that never shuts, When sinks the beams of light. There is an Arm that never tires, When human strength gives way. There is a Love that never fails, When earthly loves decay.
George Matheson
#50. If everything in this world was in constant decay, why expend so much energy gnashing my teeth over work?
Dan Harris
#51. If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ's Kingdom, and of His love.
John Owen
#52. How stupid could she be to think a clean person would love her
would risk death and decay and banishment for love!
Alan Brennert
#53. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the _art_ of lying.
Mark Twain
#54. Human relationships flourish and decay, quickly and silently, so that those concerned scarcely know how brittle, or how inflexible, the ties that bind them have become.
Anthony Powell
#55. Fear is the short road to death and this world,
Changed by the flux of decay:
Survival is the exception for weary men.
From the new book The Waning
Ellen Mae Franklin
#56. Nations and civilizations rise, flourish for a time, and then decay. Eventually each comes to an end. This, because of sin, is the decree of history and the way of life on this planet.
Billy Graham
#57. Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game,
Where wasted nations raise a single name;
And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
Samuel Johnson
#58. Possessed of the Tao, he endures long; and to the end of his bodily life, is exempt from all danger of decay.
Lao-Tzu
#59. A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sad and melancholy prospects of decay, it would give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
Maurice Chevalier
#61. A nation that fails to recognize and appreciate history is destined for decay.
Mark Mortensen
#62. Flee sloth; for the indolence of the soul is the decay of the body.
Cato The Younger
#63. We (Muslims) have no right, in our present misery, to boast of past glories. But we must realise that it was the negligence of the Muslims - and not any deficiency in the teachings of Islam - that caused our present decay.
Muhammad Asad
#64. The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new constitutes a period of transition which must always necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error, and wild and fierce fanaticism.
John C. Calhoun
#65. I reason, earth is short, And anguish absolute, And many hurt; But what of that? I reason, we could die: The best vitality Cannot excel decay; But what of that? I reason that in heaven Somehow, it will be even, Some new equation given; But what of that?
Emily Dickinson
#66. The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.
Samuel Johnson
#67. This I tell you: decay is inherent in all conditioned things. Work out your own salvation, with diligence.
Gautama Buddha
#68. Necessity is what impels men to take action, and once necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left
Niccolo Machiavelli
#69. Things exalted then decay. This is going against the Way. What goes against the Way meets an early end.
Laozi
#70. Death, is not an end, but a transition crisis. All the forms of decay are but masks of regeneration
the secret alembics of vitality.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
#71. When your head is smashing into the concrete you don't have question about whether it's a real sensation. And ultimately, that's what's going to unmake us all - smashing up against the physical reality of death and decay, and being unmade.
Will Sheff
#72. I move forward
with my
drawer of treasures
that will never decay.
Cory Basil
#73. Things begin, things decay, and you've got to find a way to be okay.
Jon Brion
#74. Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.
Robert Browning
#75. Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity.
Simon Bolivar
#76. All political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power; they petrify and decay as soon as the living power of the people ceases to uphold them.
Hannah Arendt
#77. And so all growth that is not towards God Is growing towards decay.
George MacDonald
#79. We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now ... but it will grow again ... like the trees.
Chief Joseph
#80. 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
#81. Churches may decay and perish; riches may make themselves wings and fly away-but he who builds their happiness on Christ crucified and union with Him by faith, that person is standing on a foundation which shall never be moved, and will know something of true peace.
J.C. Ryle
#82. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime.
Lee Atwater
#83. 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
#85. The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.
Edmund Waller
#86. Beware of suretyship for thy best friend; he that payeth another man's debt seeketh his own decay.
Joseph Jekyll
#87. Changelessness is decay."
"A paradox. There is no decay without a change for the worse."
"Changelessness is a change for the worse ...
Isaac Asimov
#88. To be sensitively aware of thought, of feeling, of the world about you, of your office and of nature, is to explode from moment to moment in affection. Without affection, every action becomes burdensome and mechanical and leads to decay.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#89. To say that Doctor Tenace loved death is probably too much, but decay, especially mental or soul decay fascinated him. He was hypnotised by the last minutes of all sorts of living creatures struggling with death.
Yves Bernas
#90. I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society ... unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.
Tina Fey
#91. Autumn teaches us that fruition is also death; that ripeness is a form of decay. The willows, having stood for so long near water, begin to rust. Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.
Gretel Ehrlich
#92. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature cannot touch with decay
Bob Dylan
#93. The world's decay where the wind's hands have passed,
And my head, worn out with love, at rest
In my hands, and my hands full of dust.
Ted Hughes
#94. Bad health is the primary reason for all life. Created by disease, within putrefaction, into decay
William Faulkner
#95. Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle the Christian, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster; while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.
Hannah More
#96. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, Buds that open only to decay.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#97. "The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world," says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#98. O, if I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
William Shakespeare
#99. Since we cannot promise our selves constant health, let us endeavour at such temper as may be our best support in the decay of it.
Richard Steele
#100. If the British Empire is fated to pass from life into history, we must hope it will not be by the slow process of dispersion and decay, but in some supreme exertion for freedom, for right and for truth.
Winston Churchill
