“It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.”

Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli, p. 147
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heigh…" by Pierre Stephen Robert Payne?

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne28

British lecturer, novelist, historian, poet and biographer 1911–1983

Related quotes

“It seems to be almost an invariable rule that as real power declines, the symbols of power multiply and intensify in compensation.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Roman Empire (1967), p. 176

“In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.”

Dennis Lehane (1965) Novelist

“I'm not afraid of heights, but the idea of falling from them, well, that I'm afraid of.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

“That water which falls from some Alpine height is dashed, broken, and will murmur loudly, but grows limpid by its fall.”

Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782) Italian poet and librettist (born 3 January 1698, died 12 April 1782)

Alcide al Bivio (1760), scene 5.

“Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

“We must fall back upon the broad, the incorruptible power of national liberty; that we decline to recognise any class whatever, be they peers or be they gentry, be they what you like, as entitled to direct the destinies of this nation against the will of the nation.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Pathhead, Scotland (23 March 1880), quoted in Political Speeches in Scotland, March and April 1880 (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1880), p. 268.
1880s