Quotes about decadence
page 9

“We tend quite rightly to associate an age with its newest and most original ideas, and there is no harm in this as long as we remember that only a few men, at that time, may have actually held those ideas, and that many decades, often amounting to centuries, may pass before those ideas have seeped down to wider and commoner levels of belief, thought, and feeling.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 6, p. 140

Time, Age, Idea, Feeling

“Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country's own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Way, Truth, Country

“There are a number of ways by which the Federal Government can meet its responsibilities to aid economic growth. We can and must improve American education and technical training. We can and must expand civilian research and technology. One of the great bottlenecks for this country's economic growth in this decade will be the shortage of doctorates in mathematics, engineering, and physics; a serious shortage with a great demand and an under-supply of highly trained manpower. We can and must step up the development of our natural resources. But the most direct and significant kind of Federal action aiding economic growth is to make possible an increase in private consumption and investment demand--to cut the fetters which hold back private spending. In the past, this could be done in part by the increased use of credit and monetary tools, but our balance of payments situation today places limits on our use of those tools for expansion. It could also be done by increasing Federal expenditures more rapidly than necessary, but such a course would soon demoralize both the Government and our economy. If Government is to retain the confidence of the people, it must not spend more than can be justified on grounds of national need or spent with maximum efficiency.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Confidence, Country, Past, People

“Mars has always captured the human imagination for decades and decades, it’s always been the planet that everyone’s looking toward. Knowing it’s out there, it’s what drives everything that we do.”

Jessica Meir (1977) Swedish-American marine biologist and astronaut

Source: As quoted in [Kaplan, Sarah, Journey to Mars: Meet NASA astronaut candidate Jessica Meir, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/journey-to-mars-jessica-meir/2015/04/28/29d206a0-b11b-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html?utm_term=.573b6aa772fe, 26 April 2019, The Washington Post, April 28, 2015]

Imagination

“iPhone is the most profitable product in the history of business, but more than a decade after its debut, pretty much everyone on the planet who can afford one already has one ...”

Farhad Manjoo (1978) American journalist

Source: The Incredible Shrinking Apple http://nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/apple-steve-jobs.html in The New York Times (3 April 2019)

Business, History

“And now I salute thee with awe, with veneration, and wonder, ancient India, of whom I am the adept, the India of the highest splendor of art and philosophy. May thy awakening astonish the Occident, decadent, mean, daily dwindling, slayer of nations, slayer of Gods, slayer of souls, which yet bows down still, ancient India, before the prodigies of thy primordial conceptions!”

Pierre Loti (1850–1923) French writer

Source: attributed and quoted in Josyer, G R. Sanskrit Civilization, International Academy of Sanskrit Research. Mysore 1966 p. 1

https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

God, Soul, Art

“For more than three decades the Americans had been gradually sliding into isolationism and industrial decline. Space, he thought ruefully, they should have gone into space. He'd never understood the strange paralysis of will that had seemed to grip their brilliant early efforts. Or perhaps it was simply a failure of imagination, of vision.”

William Gibson Burning Chrome

"Red Star, Winter Orbit"
Burning Chrome (short story anthology, 1986)

Imagination, Failure, Effort

“The last ten years have proved that the most backward totalitarian form of Socialism is superior to the decadent type of Capitalism we have in the Western World.”

Richard Crossman (1907–1974) British Member of Parliament

Letter to The Guardian (1 December 1961), quoted in Bryan Magee, The New Radicalism (1963), p. 102, n.

World

“Let us specify that the possible gaps in the human mind are due, not to fortuitous causes, but to the very conditions of the "dark age", the kali-yuga, which has as an effect − among other modes of decadence − a progressive weakening of pure intellection and of the ascending tendencies of soul; whence the necessity of the religious revelations, and whence also the problematical phenomenon of gratuitous and divergent philosophies.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[1995, Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy, Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies, 1, 1, 8]
Miscellaneous, Revelation

Soul, Age

“My administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

" Texas enforces restrictive abortion ban; FL advocates say it’s ‘part of a national agenda’ https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/09/01/texas-enforces-restrictive-abortion-ban-fl-advocates-say-its-part-of-a-national-agenda/" published" (September 1, 2021) <br class="br">2021, September 2021

“After a revolution there must be a period of cleansing, retribution and reeducation, presided over by a ruthless leader. It is the only way to root out the entrenched decadence.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Drugs and Governments
Focus Fourteen

Way

“In decades to come ventricular catheterization performed to measure hormone concentrations will become as routine as the measurement of lumbar 'pressure' is today.”

Richard Bergland neuroscientist

The Fabric of Mind (1985)

“Don’t judge others who disagree with your views too harshly. You might just find yourself holding those same views a few years or decades down the line.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

“It appears both amusing and terrifying at the same time, that the majority of the women claim to be the victims of narcissistic behaviours. I have no doubt that, this is something to do with the newly introduced gender equality, I called it ‘new’ because it has been put into practice only in the past decades.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Appearance, Time, Past, Women

“I love a lot of different genres of music, but, to me, the most exciting genre right now, and probably for the past two decades, is hip hop. That’s where the most innovation is, although electronic music now is starting to produce some real interesting stuff, and I’m really digging on that a lot.”

Richard Wolf American music producer

Composer Spotlight: Richard Wolf https://www.mixonline.com/sfp/composer-spotlight-richard-wolf-369033 (January 1, 2002)

Past, Music, Love

“People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer fucntion.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 470
Cloud Atlas (2004), Letters from Zedelghem (Part 2)

Music, People

“The climate system takes decades to respond to changes in carbon emissions so decisions made now will affect future generations - for better or worse.”

Joanna Haigh (1954) British physicist

"Imperial climate experts respond to IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report" https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/161770/imperial-climate-experts-respond-ipccs-fifth/, Imperial College London (November 3, 2014)

Future, Decision, Change

“During the first decade, I began my journey as a model. In the second decade, I fell in love with this industry. For this third one, I hope to contribute and give back to the industry in positive ways.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Hope, Way, Love

“In recent decades the effects of environmental change on insect populations has been the focus of my research. It is widely recognised that invasive alien species, climate change and habitat destruction are all major players in the declines of many insects. Ladybirds are no exception.”

Helen Roy (1969) British ecologist and entomologist

Source: Ladybirds: an interview with Helen Roy, Ecological Entomologist at the BRC https://www.nhbs.com/blog/ladybirds-helen-roy (14 May 2013)

Change