Best 266 quotes in «decay quotes» category

The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.

The word "salvation" denotes rescue. Rescue? What from? Well, of course, ultimately death. And since it is sin that colludes with the forces of evil and decay, sin leads to death. So we are rescued from sin and death.

The world is afflicted by death and decay. But the wise do not grieve, having realized the nature of the world.

The world was in her heart already, like the small spot of decay in a fruit.

Things begin, things decay, and you've got to find a way to be okay.

Things exalted then decay. This is going against the Way. What goes against the Way meets an early end.

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being.

This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.

Throughout the whole vegetable, sensible, and rational world, whatever makes progress towards maturity, as soon as it has passed that point, begins to verge towards decay.

Time drops in decay Like a candle burnt out. And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; But, kindly old rout Of the fire-born moods, You pass not away.

Thy decay's still impregnate with divinity.

Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.

Time on its back bears all things far away - Full many a challenge is wrought by many a day - Shape, fortune, name, and nature all decay

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or intellectual beauty. Moral beauty has a tendency to decay very rapidly into sententiousness or untimeliness.

We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections.

We know that our senses are subject to decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't believe.

We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.

We must act swiftly in order to halt the rate of decay our planet faces.

We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body.

Whatever your issue is, whether it's racism or homophobia or policy issues or taxes or urban decay or health care, you're not going to go anywhere with it if we don't focus on the concentration of power.

We think literature is immortal, but even that decays and ultimately turns to dust.

What is to be done? We who are still half alive, living in the often fibrillating heartland of a senescent capitalism -- can we do more than reflect the decay around and within us? Can we do more than sing our sad and bitter songs of disillusion and defeat?

What is love, if it can calculate and provide against its own decay?

What is Death, so it be but glorious? 'Tis a sunset; And mortals may be happy to resemble The Gods but in decay.

When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings

Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.

Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.

Whenever a people or an institution forget its hard beginnings, it is beginning to decay.

When I was a young man, near the beginning of my life, I looked around with true mindfulness and saw that all things are subject to decay.

When love begins to sicken and decay it uses an enforced ceremony.

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.

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.

Where there is no strife there is decay: 'The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.'

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

Without death and decay, how could life go on?

Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

Anything with blood in it can probably go bad. Like meat. And it’s the blood that makes me worry. It carries things you don’t even know you got.

You guard against decay, in general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move.

And now that this body is gone and has been returned to the Earth, I assure everyone that psychic energy doesn’t die, it is recycled throughout the universe and will out live anything that we do as living beings. Flesh will decay, ideas won’t as long as you believe in them and someone believes in you.

Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canter dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily - certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay.

A lot of things in the house were broken or forgotten: the kitchen clock stopped, a closet doorknob coming off in my hand. The sparkly mess of flies I'd swept from the corners. It took sustained, constant living to ward off decay.

An oppressive odor of decay now mingled with the stench of mold and seemed to clutch at the very breath in their lungs.

As far as he could discover, there were no signs of spring. The decay that covered the surface of the mottled ground was not the kind in which life generates. Last year, he remembered, May had failed to quicken these soiled fields. It had taken all the brutality of July to torture a few green spikes through the exhausted dirt. What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up, flowers that smelled of feet. "Ah, humanity..." But he was heavy with shadow and the joke went into a dying fall. He trist to break its fall by laughing at himself.

As a people we practiced excess. Excess in everything - pleasure, gaud display, endless toil, and death. Vagrant children slept in the alleys. Ragpicking was a profession. A conspicuously self-satisfied class of new wealth and weak intellect was all aglitter in a setting of mass misery.

At the Moor Wanderer in the black wind; quietly the dry reeds whisper In the stillness of the moor. In the gray sky A flock of wild birds follows; Slanting over gloomy waters. Turmoil. In decayed hut The spirit of putrescence flutters with black wings. Crippled birches in the autumn wind. Evening in deserted tavern. The way home is scented all around By the soft gloom of grazing herds; Apparition of the night; toads plunge from brown waters.

By assembling in our mind all the consequential facts we have lived through and by reviewing, appraising or sometimes idealizing the numerous key points of the past, authenticity may gradually mutate and actuality decay at last. At that point in time we are to experience a maimed factuality. ("Labyrinth of the mind")