“The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII... Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period... so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.” IfsWorldEndsSeemsPastRichCenturyPeriodsCuriosityRuinsApartmentEnd Of The WorldGothicRenaissanceCabinetsAntiquityPredicaments Author:Alfred de Musset
“This whole theory [of John Law and Jean Terrasson], as dear to French financial schemers in the eighteenth century as to American "Greenbackers" in the nineteenth, had resulted, under the Orleans Regency and Louis XV, in ruin to France financially and morally, had culminated in the utter destruction of all prosperity, the rooting out of great numbers of the most important industries, and the grinding down of the working people even to starvation.” PeopleImportantWholeLawNumbersCenturyTheoryIndustryDestructionFinancialDearProsperityRuinsFranceStarvation Author:Andrew Dickson White
“All of women's stories in the 19th century had either one of two endings: you either had the good Jane Austen marriage at the end and you were happy; or you had the terrible Henry James savage downfall because of your own hubris as a woman, or you've made some great error leading you down a path to ruin. One is the story of love that's successful and the other is the story usually of reckless love that goes terribly wrong that destroys the woman.” MadeTwoEndsStoriesPathSuccessfulCenturyTerribleErrorsRuinsSavagesJaneReckless19th CenturyDownfallHubrisAusten Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“In eighteenth-century England, there was a practice of hiring a picturesque hermit who would inhabit the beautiful ruin on your estate. To me it rhymes with certain kinds of pop-music entertainers and eccentrics - both touted and tolerated.” KindBeautifulCertainPracticeCenturyEnglandPopsRuinsEstatesRhymeEntertainersPop MusicHiringHermitsPicturesque Author:David Grubbs
“Detroits industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.” CenturyRuinsRomeDetroit18th CenturyCrumblingPicturesqueEtching Author:P. J. O'Rourke