Quotes about decline (425 quotes, page 5)

“We might perhaps be more tolerant of rulers turning preachers if they were moral giants. But what citizen looks at the government today thinking how wise and virtuous it is? Public respect for politicians has long been declining, even as the population at large has been seduced into responding to each new problem by demanding that the government should act. That we should be constantly demanding that an institution we rather despise should solve large problems argues a notable lack of logic in the demos.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

The statesmen of times past have been replaced by a set of barely competent social workers eager to help 'ordinary people' solve daily problems in their lives. This strange aspiration is a very large change in public life. The electorates of earlier times would have responded with derision to politicians seeking power in order to solve our problems. Today, the demos votes for them.
Introduction, p. 3
The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Problem , Thinking

“Tulsidas is the highest tree in the garden of Hindu poetry, though his name does not appear in Aeen-i-Akbari or any book of Muslim historians or even narratives of European writers who worked on information taken from Persian historians. Yet, Tuslidas was the greatest man of India of his time. In fact he can be called greater than Akbar because the victory that the poet registered in the hearts of thousands of millions of people was greater and more lasting than all the imperious victories put together…the Ramacharritamanas is such an enormous epic that its English adaptation by Growse is of 362 pages. The declinations in this epic are so similar to Christianity that on numerous spots, if Rama is replaced by Christ, there can be no question.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Vincent Smith in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", pp.34-35
On Tulsidas’s epic Ramacharritamanas

Tree , Time , Question , Victory

“It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which the Roman empire declined into the Dark Ages. Nonetheless certain parallels there are. A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium.”

Alasdair MacIntyre book After Virtue

What they set themselves to achieve instead - often not recognizing fully what they were doing - was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point.
Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 263

Drawing , History , Communication , Age

“Some of the evils which are caused by the fallacy of an incompatibility between theory and practice having been described, it must now be admitted, that at the present time those evils show a decided tendency to decline.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

The extent of intercourse, and of mutual assistance, between men of science and men of practice, the practical knowledge of scientific men, and the scientific knowledge of practical men, have been for some time steadily increasing; and that combination and harmony of theoretical and practical knowledge—that skill in the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, which in former times was confined to a few remarkable individuals, now tends to become more generally diffused.
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)

Time , Evil

“I had a year where I sat around on my butt and declined generous offers to do more teen movies and more of the same characters as the one from 10 Things.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

I was literally living off Ramen noodles and water just because I was sticking to my guns. It was very hard because they offer you so much money. It's so easy to say, 'Ah fuck it, at least I can live and eat.'
Interview with Detour (Summer 2000).

“The sin of bourgeois patriotism was to confound a certain economic form with the national. It connected two things that are entirely different. Forms of the economy, however firm they may seem, are changeable. The national is eternal. If I mix the eternal and the temporal, the eternal will necessarily collapse when the temporal collapses. This was the real cause for the collapse of liberal society. It was rooted not in the eternal, but in the temporal, and when the temporal declined it took the eternal down with it. Today it is only an excuse for a system that brings growing economic misery. That is the only reason why international Jewry organizes the battle of the proletarian forces against both powers, the economy and the nation, and defeat them.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“Ideology, legitimacy, authority: Such topics used to interest academics no end. The mania for quantifying the social sciences and the attendant decline in foreign-language acquisition have changed things. I remember Sovietologists lamenting this trend when I was at school in the 1980s. It’s gone much, much further since. What cannot be researched with the proper statistical-numerical methodology is thought beneath serious analysis. On the rare occasions when a non-quantifier takes the microphone at a conference, the Gradgrinds lean back with an indulgent smile: Time for some light relief.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, League Confederation Goes Outer-Track (September 2018)

School , Time , Light , Smile

“It seems, moreover, that my argument has some relevance to choices we must make even now. There are some species of large predatory animals, such as the Siberian tiger, that are currently on the verge of extinction. If we do nothing to preserve it, the Siberian tiger as a species may soon become extinct. The number of extant Siberian tigers has been low for a considerable period. Any ecological disruption occasioned by their dwindling numbers has largely already occurred or is already occurring. If their number in the wild declines from several hundred to zero, the impact of their disappearance on the ecology of the region will be almost negligible. Suppose, however, that we could repopulate their former wide-ranging habitat with as many Siberian tigers as there were during the period in which they flourished in their greatest numbers, and that that population could be sustained indefinitely. That would mean that herbivorous animals in the extensive repopulated area would again, and for the indefinite future, live in fear and that an incalculable number would die in terror and agony while being devoured by a tiger. In a case such as this, we may actually face the kind of dilemma I called attention to in my article, in which there is a conflict between the value of preserving existing species and the value of preventing suffering and early death for an enormously large number of animals.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" Predators: A Response https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/predators-a-response/", The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2010

Death , Future , Suffering , Animals

“Momentum of the Wuhan virus epidemic outbreak may decline in 20 days (since 26 January 2020) based on the current prevention and control measures of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus.”

Wen Yumei (1934)

Wen Yumei (2020) cited in " Expert believes China's control measures on Wuhan virus will take effect in 20 days https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/01/27/expert-believes-china039s-control-measures-on-wuhan-virus-will-take-effect-in-20-days" on The Star Online, 27 January 2020.

“Thus, Buddhism did not so much decline, as it assumed forms which made it indistinguishable from Hinduism.”

Satish Chandra (1922–2017) an Indian historian

Quoted from Arun Shourie (2014) Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud. HarperCollins.

“If we do not succeed with political union...then the historic decline of Europe which began with the First World War will resume.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Interview with Der Spiegel, quoted in The Times (14 October 1991), p. 1
President of the European Commission

World , War

“The American standard of living must decline.”

Paul Volcker (1927–2019) American economist

As Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan, October 1979. archive.is https://archive.is/lLeUg, New York Times, David McNally, "Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance",
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRf9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Paul+Volcker,+%E2%80%9CThe+American+standard+of+living+must+decline,%E2%80%9D books.google.com

“Because of the many things that have happened to me in my life, I have touched the decline more than the rise. I decided to retreat into myself. But I soon return stronger.”

Nedim Jahić (2001) Bosnian singer

Life

“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 slow decline of Christianity prepared the way for new Utopias and doomsdays. Indeed some of the new views of the future contained many of the characteristics of a religion.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000 (1988)

Way , Future , Religion

“Our luxuries have condemned us to weakness; we have ceased to be able to do that which we have long declined to do.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LV: On Vatia’s Villa

“Policies and business strategies that worked well in the industrial era are a recipe for stagnation and decline in the new economy”

John Roth (1942) Canadian businessman

John Roth https://web.archive.org/web/20110523072731/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1225/poy_roth.html December 25, 2000

Business

“[T]he church does not preach the gospel at the pleasure of any administration or decline to preach it at another administration’s displeasure. We preach at Christ’s pleasure.”

Michael Horton (theologian) (1964) American theologian

What Are Evangelicals Afraid of Losing? (2018)

Pleasure , Christ

“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 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

“Consider all that you've gone through, all that you've survived. And that the story of your life is done, your assignment complete. How many good things have you seen? How much pain and pleasure have you resisted? How many honors have you declined? How many unkind people have you been kind to?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book V, 31

Pain , People , Pleasure , Life

“You’re the military analyst, writer, historian: you, above all people, should know that those who decline to take a hand in controlling events surrender the ability to influence them.”

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Fire with Fire (2013), Chapter 26 (p. 303)

People

“The decline of the churches was a sweeping social revolution, because they had done more than any other institution, public or private, to civilise Australians.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Shorter History of Australia (1994)

“I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.”

John Donne Songs and Sonnets

Songs and Sonnets (1633), The Good-Morrow

Soul , Sea , Country , Love

“I spoke the other day to the art historian Vanni Scheiwiler who publishes in Milan. But Signor Scheiwiler is pessimistic; he says that under the influence of the new conformism the city, after all the cultural centre of Italy, has been undergoing a decline in intellectual vitality. Anyone who comes up with something that does not fit in with the line is promptly put down by being called a Fascist. The word Fascist is reported so often that one wonders whether it hasn’t lost all meaning! This reminded me of what Ignazio Silone said in 1945 soon after he returned to Italy from his Zurich exile: “The fascism of tomorrow will never say ‘I am Facism’. It will say: ‘I am anti-Facism’.””

Ignazio Silone (1900–1978) Italian author and politician

Source: https://books.google.de/books?id=CPdKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT250 PT250 books.google
Source: François Bondy: Italian Censorship (European Notebook). Encounter Band 47, No. 2 (1976) August, p. 51 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=iS0dAQAAMAAJ&q=silone; Reprint in: European Notebooks 1954-1985, Routledge, New York 2017,

Art

Quotes about decline page 5

Quotes about decline
page 5