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Decadence Quotes

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Decadence Quotes

“It does if you put yourself out there being a pirate. It's like if you have an army and your army sit around and not doing anything and living the lives of decadence and they're faced with a battle, and you slide. Do they deserve the right to call themselves an army? Do these pirates who are basically languishing deserve the right to call themselves pirates? They're victims of their own success.”

IfsDoeBattleDeserveArmyVictimSlidesPirateDecadencePutting Yourself Out There
Author:Ray Stevenson
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“All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don't come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure.”

IfsHumansTwoFormSpiritualityTermDealsAttentionIssuesIdentityConcernedEmpowermentDecadenceExplicitLapsesSatanism
Author:Dallas Willard
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“I'd also hope that my liberal friends, who find in this pope a critic of what they're pleased to call "culture-warrior" Catholics, will read carefully, and ponder even more carefully, what Pope Francis had to say about the "ideological colonization" implicit in Western decadence when he was giving robust pro-life, pro-family talks in the Philippines.”

GivingCultureCatholicCriticsWesternWarriorPopeIdeologicalPonderingPro LifeRobustDecadencePhilippinesImplicitColonization
Author:George Weigel
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“There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned.”

IfsBookCultureNationsMoralSawsTelevisionFinalsContemporaryManifestationGrandmotherAbandonedDeclineMy GrandmotherCathedralsDecadenceSteadfastShrinesDeterioration
Book:A Prayer For Owen Meany
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“He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.”

IfsLoveSaidIndividualNationsMoralColorGreenCuriousArtisticSubtleTemperamentDecadenceArtistic Temperament
Book:Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis
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“When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were what everyone used; simple syllables couldn't contain something as rare as what I felt for Sean. I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.”

FeelsMightWantedUsedThreeFeltSimpleBehindsWonderHonestHabitComfortTasteExpectationsIncrediblesCombinationDecadenceSyllablesSeanThree Words
Book:Handle with Care: A Novel
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“The Stones suggested that if you dabble in decadence, you could turn into a devil-worshipping junkie. Paul McCartney suggested that if you mess around with girl worship, you could turn into a husband. So Paul was a lot scarier.”

IfsTurnsGirlHusbandWorshipDevilStonesMessDecadenceJunkieWorship You
Book:Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut
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“Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display. What happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?”

MenMeanIdeasWantedValuesNamesWalksCommonMoralPracticeRightsHappenedCitizensBehaviorConsequenceMajorityWitnessParksRomeDisplayProtectedDecencyFoulDecadenceCommon ManMoral ValuesCitizenryDeviantsCommon Decency
Author:Francine Rivers
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“I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.”

MenWorldHas BeensI CanTodayFormPoliticalSocialCausesDealsOpinionStudyProgressRelationRegardIslamConvictionAbsurdTendenciesVisiblePrincipalPaganismMuhammadQuranDecadenceMuslim WorldPolytheism
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
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“All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.”

PeopleIfsWritingTryingHumansArtMotivationUnderstandingLove IsSpringArt IsWorks Of ArtSincereDeclarationDecadenceActs Of LoveDeclarations Of Love
Book:Truman Capote: Conversations
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“Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that "bravely" trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.”

FirstsLooksSelfPoliticalValuesCultureGivenForceViolenceStandardsConcernedTraditionThreatIslamAcceptedSettingSettingsEstablishmentPreservationTrashGiven UpTotalitarianismTabooBrutesLoathingDecadenceSelf PreservationSelf LoathingFranticKnucklesBrute Force
Author:Ross Douthat
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“I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds.”

SoulCultureGamesSoundPleasureRaceFireCivilizationCapableSpringCapacityStonesGoldUltimateArmyIntenseFlamesBeastSubtleSensationsExhaustedPurpleCircusConsumingDecadenceSparkleWild BeastsInvadingTrampsRougePrecious StonesCourtesans
Author:Paul Verlaine
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“In a 'wheat and tares' world, how unusually blessed faithful members are to have the precious and constant gift of the Holy Ghost with reminders of what is right and of the covenants we have made. 'For behold, ... the Holy Ghost ... will show unto you all things what ye should do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever the decibels of decadence, these need not overwhelm the still, small voice! Some of the best sermons we will ever hear will be thus prompted from the pulpit of memory—to an audience of one!”

WorldNeedsShouldMadeStillsShowsVoiceMemoriesAudienceHolyMembersAll ThingsBlessedConstantGhostFaithfulSermonsRemindersCovenantHoly GhostWheatDecadencePulpitSmall VoiceAudience Of One
Author:Neal A. Maxwell
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“I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage. Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.”

IfsWorldShouldYearsTwoRealityCultureThreeBlackWhiteWeekColorHundredEvidenceInstrumentsFiftyOur SocietyHistorianHeritageBlack And WhiteAbidingEscapismDecadenceGood Night And Good LuckInsulation
Author:Edward R. Murrow
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“We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it, to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to disappear.”

FeelsMayWarMomentsHomeHappensMovingMoralEnemyQuietEntertainmentCornersDisappearBeastDeclineDecadenceFiberTotal WarCorneredQuiet MomentsMoral Fiber
Book:Guerrilla Warfare
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“It is rather the nature of America - our freewheeling, outspoken, prosperous, liberty-loving citizens extend equality to women, homosexuals, minorities, and almost anyone who comes to our shores, and thereby create desire and with it shame for that desire. Indeed, it is worse still than that: Precisely because we worry publicly that we are insensitive, our enemies scoff privately that we in fact are too sensitive - what we think is liberality and magnanimity they see as license and decadence. If we don't have confidence in who we are, why should they?”

IfsThinkingShouldStillsFactsAmericaDesireLibertyEnemyWorryCitizensShameSensitiveWho We AreMinoritiesShoreHomosexualLicenseProsperousHave ConfidenceDecadenceInsensitiveOutspokenMagnanimityLiberality
Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“Fascism was an explosion against intolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world failed to remedy. It was a movement to secure national renaissance by people who felt themselves threatened with decline into decadence and death and were determined to live, and live greatly.”

PeopleWorldFeltConditionsMovementDeterminedSecureFascismDeclineRemedyThreatenedExplosionsRenaissanceDecadenceOld World
Book:My Life - Oswald Mosley
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“Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.”

NeedsWellsKindWarSelfLastsRaceKnownCasesFourExampleMastersAmbitionLateEuropeEnglandChinaTyrannyOppressionCombinationGermanyFollyEmpiresJapanWell KnownAsiaConquestIncompetenceRoman EmpireDecadencePhilipAthensDynastyCitingPerversity
Book:The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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“Waiting for Godot was not allowed. Neither was Henry Miller. The Soviets condemned them both. Miller would have been used as an example of decadence, being a very good analyst of how terrible and monstrous American culture was. That they liked, but they wouldn't publish him. I guess it must have been the sex. With Beckett, it must have been the hopelessness.”

Has BeensUsedCultureSexWaitingExampleTerribleVery GoodHopelessnessPublishAmerican CultureMonstrousDecadenceAnalystsBeckettGodotWaiting For Godot
Author:Barney Rosset
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“I'm an ambitious person. I mean, if I did that... I would self-destruct, in the sense that the decadence would be too strong an attraction for me. Whether that be in the form of gambling, fast cars, alcohol, drugs, whatever it happens to be... I think the lure of that lifestyle would be too strong.”

IfsThinkingMeanPersonsSelfHappensWould BeFormStrongCarDrugAttractionAlcoholLifestyleGamblingAmbitiousRevealingLureDecadenceSelf DestructFast CarAmbitious Person
Author:James Packer
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