Decadence Quotes

• When the storytelling goes bad in a society, the result is decadence.

  Aristotle

  Storytelling, Results

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• In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.

  Cal Thomas

  Change, Reflection, Government

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• I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds.

  Paul Verlaine

  Spring, Army, Fire

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• But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

  E. M. Forster

  Mean, Humanity, Progress

  E. M. Forster (2015). “The Machine Stops”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

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• I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.

  Paul Verlaine

  Empires, Ends

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• Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness, which is the very basis of life. Could it think, the heart would stop beating.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Heart, Loss, Thinking

  Fernando Pessoa (2007). “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”, p.319, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.

  Giambattista Vico

  Men, Luxury, Mad

  Giambattista Vico (2015). “The New Science of Giambattista Vico”, p.153, Cornell University Press

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• He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Color, Green

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.950, Wordsworth Editions

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• Religion is the biggest influence on the intellect and the decadence of a people.

  Siddharth Katragadda

  People, Influence, Intellect

  "Dark Rooms: A Saga". Book by Siddharth Katragadda, 2002.

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• Decadence attracts me. It suggests a new world, and, for me, society's struggle between life and death is absolutely beautiful.

  Yves Saint Laurent

  Beautiful, Struggle, Life And Death

  Yves Saint Laurent (1983). “Catalog of the Exhibition Held at the Costume”, p.22, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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• To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Definitions

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• It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Powerful, Self, Deception

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2011). “The Will to Power”, p.340, Vintage

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• Every civilization when it loses its inner vision and its cleaner energy, falls into a new sort of sordidness, more vast and more stupendous than the old savage sort. An Augean stable of metallic filth.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Fall, Civilization, Vision

  D. H. Lawrence (1962). “The Art of Perversity”

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• The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.

  Aldous Huxley

  Anarchy, Utopia, Wave

  Aldous Huxley (2002). “Complete Essays: 1939-1956”, Ivan R Dee

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• Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Abuse, Afternoon, Littles

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2231, Simon and Schuster

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• Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence.

  J. G. Ballard

  Burial, Customs

  J. G. Ballard (2001). “The complete short stories”, Fourth Estate

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• In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

  Will Durant

  Philosophy, People, Youth

  Will Durant (2012). “Story of Philosophy”, p.531, Simon and Schuster

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• You gotta eat right, you gotta have healthy habits, you know, and balance out your decadence with a healthy lifestyle during the day.

  Talib Kweli

  Healthy Habits, Balance, Healthy Lifestyle

  "13 Questions With Talib Kweli". Interview with Emma McKay, www.askmen.com. September 18, 2007.

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• Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Luxury, Lifestyle, Individual

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• Content without style is propaganda or adolescence. Style without content is decadence.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Style, Propaganda, Adolescence

  Rita Mae Brown (2011). “Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual”, p.83, Bantam

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• The glossy surface of our civilization hides a real intellectual decadence.

  Simone Weil

  Real, Civilization, Intellectual

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.156, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

  James Thurber

  Differences, Apathy, Comedy

  The Observer, February 05, 1961.

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• Progress of mankind is the decadence of humanity.

  Siddharth Katragadda

  Humanity, Progress, Mankind

  "The Other Wife: A Novel in Verse". Book by Siddharth Katragadda, 2003.

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• I absolutely believe that when one goes on vacation, it should be pure decadence.

  Crystal Renn

  Believe, Vacation, Goes On

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

  Cyril Connolly

  Civilization, Luxury, Goal

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