Quotes About Decay

Civilization was a thin, dangerously fragile veneer, and when that veneer cracked, man became one with the beasts again, falling back into the slime of the primeval abyss he prided himself on having climbed up from.

we are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our body, which is doomed to decay..., from the external world which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless force of destruction, and finally from our relations with other men... This last source is perhaps more painful to use than any other. (p77)

Suffering comes from three quarters: from our own body, which is destined to decay and dissolution, and cannot even dispense with anxiety and pain as danger-signals; from the outer world, which can rage against us with the most powerful and pitiless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations with other men.

If we are to take it as a truth that knows no exception that everything dies for internal reasons – becomes inorganic once again – then we shall be compelled to say that 'the aim of all life is death' and, looking backwards, that 'inanimate things existed before living ones'.

O sofrer nos ameaça a partir de três lados: do próprio corpo, que fadado ao declínio e à dissolução, não pode sequer dispensar a dor e o medo, como sinais de advertência; e, por fim, das relações com os outros seres humanos.

There was still the dirty snow, piles of it that looked like they were rotting, stained black, peppered with garbage. The white powder that loosed itself from the sky in small handfuls, like plaster falling from a ceiling, never managed to cover up the filth.

The void which is from below is that into which we fall when we allow our natural faculties to become atrophied.

Show me a man who longs to live a day beyond his time who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly.

But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time. Earth's might decays, the might of men decays, Honor grows cold, dishonor flourishes, There is no constancy 'twixt friend and friend, Or city and city; be it soon or late, Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love.

The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.

The rich pearl of life, Soon moulders in its blackened urn, the tomb.

I'm not dead yet, just in a state of rapid decay, who isn't?

That was 1993 grunge in suburbia. This was 2003 hell in Harlem. (Dark City Lights)

In the graveyard built on a garden. The death of Every flower added a little life to the heart of the corpses buried deep inside.

The locals died and shrivelled with the autumnal leaves as their plastic, seasonal smiles faded with the last of the holidaymakers.

Depravity and decadence are two sides of the same coin.

I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling, while I pursue my round of existence from day to day.

Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.

For now I seePeace to corrupt no less than war to waste.

As killing as the canker to the rose.

The invitation to rot obliviously, to die without feeling it, to grow old looking young, is everywhere in this glorious, sunny, multi-colored city.

For decades the social structures that created nuclear families, that kept families whole and together, had eroded, had finally broken down completely. Broken homes made broken homes made broken homes.

Her limbs shrivelled and brittle, her skin wrinkled like a dry peach, her mind like a sponge squeezed out, with trickles of memories now and then to moisten it. And then there was gin:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.