Decline Quotes - Page 18

• If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.

  James C. Collins

  Stars, Real, Greatness

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• Thank you, but we respectfully decline your overture, being more enjoyably occupied at present.

  Laini Taylor

  Laini Taylor (2012). “Days of Blood and Starlight: Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy”, p.249, Hachette UK

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• Today you can buy the Dialogues of Plato for less than you would spend on a fifth of whiskey, or Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for the price of a cheap shirt. You can buy a fair beginning of an education in any bookstore with a good stock of paperback books for less than you would spend on a week's supply of gasoline.

  Louis L'Amour

  Plato, Book, Fall

  Louis L'Amour (2008). “Education of a Wandering Man”, p.11, Bantam

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• Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Time, Reputation, Increase

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1964.

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• In the scale of life there is a gradual decline in physical variability, as the organism has gathered into itself resources for meeting the exigencies of changing external conditions; and that while in the mindless and motionless plant these resources are at a minimum, their maximum is reached in the mind of man, which, at length, rises to a level with the total order and powers of nature, and in its scientific comprehension of nature is a summary, an epitome of the world.

  Chauncey Wright

  Men, Order, Intelligence

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• As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Civilization, Poetry

  "On Milton" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1825.

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• If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Party, Political, Politics

  Harper's Weekly Interview, June 24, 1871.

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• Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Progress, Mark

  John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.120

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• By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Army, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.11, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields-mathematics, physics, some others-the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Discovery, May

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• The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Courage, Community, Soldier

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.139, Simon and Schuster

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• I, like almost all chemists I know, was also attracted by the smells and bangs that endowed chemistry with that slight but charismatic element of danger which is now banned from the classroom. I agree with those of us who feel that the wimpish chemistry training that schools are now forced to adopt is one possible reason that chemistry is no longer attracting as many talented and adventurous youngsters as it once did. If the decline in hands-on science education is not redressed, I doubt that we shall survive the 21st century.

  Harry Kroto

  Adventure, School, Smell

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• It is by no haphazard chance that in every age men have risen early to pray. The first thing that marks decline in spiritual life is our relationship to the early morning.

  Oswald Chambers

  Spiritual, Morning, Prayer

  Oswald Chambers (1997). “God's Workmanship: And, He Shall Glorify Me”, Discovery House Pub

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• Rising oil prices have focused the world's attention on the depletion of oil reserves. But the depletion of underground water resources from overpumping is a far more serious issue. Excessive pumping for irrigation to satisfy food needs today almost guarantees a decline in food production tomorrow.

  Lester R. Brown

  Oil, Issues, Water

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• My life is a stairway to heaven, not a 'decline into decrepitude.

  Jane Fonda

  Heaven, Life Is, Stairways

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• 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

  Race, Rivers, Darkness

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Heart of Darkness”, p.19, eKitap Projesi

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• The big risk in Saudi Arabia is that Ghawar's rate of decline increases to an alarming point. That will set bells ringing all over the oil world because Ghawar underpins Saudi output and Saudi undergirds worldwide production.

  Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari

  Oil, Risk, Arabia

  "Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields" by Jeff Gerth, www.nytimes.com. February 24, 2004.

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• The truly free man is he who can decline a dinner invitation without giving an excuse.

  Jules Renard

  Men, Giving, Dinner

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• Don't blame yourself for the declines, because one day you will credit yourself for the increases.

  Craig Groeschel

  One Day, Credit, Blame

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• The facts of nature cannot in the long run be violated. Penetrating and seeping through everything like water, they will undermine any system that fails to take account of them, and sooner or later they will bring about its downfall. But an authority wise enough in its statesmanship to give sufficient free play to nature - of which spirit is a part - need fear no premature decline.

  Carl Jung

  Wise, Running, Play

  Carl Gustav Jung, Herbert Read, R. F.C. Hull (1954). “The practice of psychotherapy”, Bollingen

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• If we are to have a stabilized market demand, selling pressure should be maintained . . . perhaps increased . . .at the first sign of a decline in business. I know of no single way business managers can do more to stabilize market demand than through greater stabilization of sales and advertising expenditures.

  Paul G. Hoffman

  Business, Way, Pressure

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• 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

  People, Movement, World

  Oswald Mosley (2012). “My Life - Oswald Mosley”, p.298, Black House Publishing Ltd

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• Man's nature is not a bit the same as wines. He loses flavour as his life declines. We drink the oldest wine that comes our way. Old men get nasty, old wines make us gay.

  Alexis Sanchez

  Wine, Gay, Men

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• He played with enormous energy and great fighting spirit. Offering him a draw was a waste of time. He would decline it politely, but firmly. "No, thank you," he would say and the fight would go on and on and on.

  Lubomir Kavalek

  Fighting, Offering, Energy

  "Chess Great Bent Larsen Dies" by Lubomir Kavalek, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 11, 2010.

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• One common behavior of late Stage 3 [in the process of a company's decline] is when those in power blame other people or external factors- or otherwise explain away the data- rather than confront the frightening reality that the enterprise may be in serious trouble.

  Susan Collins

  Leadership, Reality, Data

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