Quotes About Deterioration

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

The worst part about ALS is that one day, you're able to brush your teeth; then you'll never be able to brush your teeth again. One day, you're able to walk - you're never going to walk again.

India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.

Brass shines with constant usage, a beautiful dress needs wearing, Leave a house empty, it rots.

The more the society becomes a technological society, the less it has to hold itself together.

Things come apart much easier than they go together.

All things that have form eventually decay. -Orochimaru

I find the world is full of people who think that their dependence on others is decreasing, or that they would be better off if they were more self-sufficient, or that technological progress has brought no improvement in the standard of living, or that the world is steadily deteriorating, or that the exchange of things and ideas is a superfluous irrelevance.

On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us? THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside—just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it.

The houses stood like men in unpressed suits, who had lost the desire to stand straight:

you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed.

all is shoring up against decay

But whatever their motives, they would all at some point confess a common weariness, a weariness that was bone-deep. They had lost whatever confidence they might have once had in their ability to reverse the deterioration they saw all around them. With that loss of confidence came a loss in the capacity for outrage. The idea of responsibility—their own, that of others—slowly eroded, replaced with gallows humor and low expectations.

In the contemporary rendition, it's not that the slave technology grows stronger than us and learns to disobey our commands—it's that we deteriorate to the level of the machines. Smart technology makes us dumber.

As Thomas Macaulay reflected in 1830, "We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason. . . . On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?"4

Things fall apart of their own accord, but the sins of men speed their deterioration: that is wisdom from the ages. It

Things fall apart: this is one of the great discoveries of humanity. And we speed the natural deterioration of great things through blindness, inaction and deceit. Without attention, culture degenerates and dies, and evil prevails.

we speed the natural deterioration of great things through blindness, inaction and deceit. Without attention, culture degenerates and dies, and evil prevails.

Sve se može srušiti: to je jedno od velikih ljudskih otrki?a. A mi ubrzavamo prirodno propadanje velikih stvari svojom sljepo?om, nedjelovanjem i zavaravanjem. Bez budne pozornosti kultura se raspada i umire, a zlo pobje?uje.

As coisas desmoronam por vontade própria, mas os pecados dos homens aceleram sua degeneração.

Venedig war ein Krebsgeschwür, das gezielt seine eigenen Metastasen plante.

There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

The only question that really counts, must be thins one: are things getting better or are they getting worse?