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Decomposition Quotes

Browse 35 quotes about Decomposition.

Decomposition Quotes

“The unchained workers of decay were waiting in a dormant state for the necessary conditions to be established, as soon enough they would be, when they might recommence their interrupted struggle, that predetermined, merciless assault in the course of which they would dismantle whatever had been alive once and once only, reducing it into tiny insignificant pieces under the eternally silent cover of death.”

DeathFateDecayCircle Of LifeDecomposition
Book:The Melancholy of Resistance
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“I don't necessarily love rotting bodies, but there's a texture to a rotting body that is unbelievable. Have you ever seen a little rotted animal? I love looking at those things, just as much as I like to look at a close-up of some tree bark, or a small bug, or a cup of coffee, or a piece of pie. You get in close and the textures are wonderful.”

CorpsesTextureRottingDecompositionDead Things
Book:Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
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“And, of course, Dr. Bloem is one of the leading authorities on humus, internationally." "The spread?" The eagle-looking guy was lost. "I think of it more as a dip," interjected Rachel. "Humus is a term for one of the major components of soil." The tight-haired young woman spoke clearly, shutting us all up. "Basically, it's decomposed matter. Leaves, animal remains, broken-down bark, that kind of thing." Frances chimed in, "It's what everything becomes, eventually." Rachel couldn't be stopped. "And it's yummy on a pita chip.”

DecompositionSoil For GrowthHumus
Book:The Garden of Small Beginnings
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“EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbour's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime, the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his gluteus maximus.”

DeathEgyptianBurialDecompositionEmbalming
Book:The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
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“Imagine some foul and putrid corpse that has lain rotting and decomposing in the grave, a jelly-like mass of liquid corruption. Imagine such a corpse a prey to flames, devoured by the fire of burning brimstone and giving off dense choking fumes of nauseous loathsome decomposition. And then imagine this sickening stench, multiplied a millionfold and a millionfold again from the millions upon millions of fetid carcasses massed together in the reeking darkness, a huge and rotting human fungus. Imagine all this, and you will have some idea of the horror of the stench of hell.”

GivingHumansIdeasTogetherMillionsDarknessHellFireImagineHugeHorrorMassCorruptionGravesBurningFlamesPreyCorpsesChokeFoulLiquidDenseRottingJellyFungiDecomposition
Book:A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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“Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.”

MindDoeStoriesBodyTurnsFallBlackDetailsBonesCoffeeHeatSoilThrownTake TimeGarbageGrindFertileSteakIt Takes TimeNitrogenSpinachFertile SoilEggshellsDecomposition
Author:Natalie Goldberg
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“I will now direct the attention of scientists to a previously unnoticed cause which brings about the metamorphosis and decomposition phenomena which are usually called decay, putrefaction, rotting, fermentation and moldering. This cause is the ability possessed by a body engaged in decomposition or combination, i.e. in chemical action, to give rise in a body in contact with it the same ability to undergo the same change which it experiences itself.”

GivingBodyActionScienceCausesAbilityAttentionDirectScientistContactCombinationEngagedChemistryChemicalsPossessedDecayUnnoticedMetamorphosisRottingFermentationDecomposition
Author:Justus von Liebig
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“But when it has been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic property of the atmosphere depended not on the oxygen, or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles. Upon this principle I have based a practice.”

Has BeensMightScienceEnergyPrinciplesPracticeAirMinutesMaterialsCapableResearchPropertyAtmosphereTreatmentDestroyingOrganismsFloatingDressingsOxygenVitalityParticlesAvoidedInjuredConstituentsSuspendedDecompositionPasteur
Author:Joseph Lister
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“Do these fuels result always and necessarily in one way from the decomposition of a pre-existing organic substance? Is it thus with the hydrocarbons so frequently observed in volcanic eruptions and emanations, and to which M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville has called attention in recent years? Finally, must one assign a parralel origin to carbonaceous matter and to hydrocarbons contained in certain meteorites, and which appear to have an origin foreign to our planet? These are questions on which the opinion of many distinguished geologists does not as yet appear to be fixed.”

WayYearsDoeMatterCertainResultsAttentionOpinionPlanetsOne WaySubstanceFixedFuelOur PlanetDistinguishedClaireEruptionGeologistDecompositionHydrocarbonsVolcanic Eruptions
Author:Marcellin Berthelot
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“What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing...by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.”

IfsStatesMightHappensAgeValuesDarkOur LivesMediaTelevisionCivilizationWesternGoverningDark AgesNoticingWestern CivilizationDeteriorationDecomposition
Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
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“In every combustion there is disengagement of the matter of fire or of light. A body can burn only in pure air [oxygen]. There is no destruction or decomposition of pure air and the increase in weight of the body burnt is exactly equal to the weight of air destroyed or decomposed. The body burnt changes into an acid by addition of the substance that increases its weight. Pure air is a compound of the matter of fire or of light with a base. In combustion the burning body removes the base, which it attracts more strongly than does the matter of heat, which appears as flame, heat and light.”

DoeMatterBodyLightScienceFireAirPureEqualDestructionWeightIncreaseExperimentsDestroyedBurningSubstanceFlamesHeatRemoveOxygenAcidCompoundsCombustionDecompositionDisengagement
Author:Antoine Lavoisier
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“The influence of electricity in producing decompositions, although of inestimable value as an instrument of discovery in chemical inquiries, can hardly be said to have been applied to the practical purposes of life, until the same powerful genius [Davy] which detected the principle, applied it, by a singular felicity of reasoning, to arrest the corrosion of the copper-sheathing of vessels. ... this was regarded as by Laplace as the greatest of Sir Humphry's discoveries.”

Has BeensSaidSciencePurposeValuesPowerfulPrinciplesInfluenceGeniusDiscoveryInstrumentsPracticalsInventionReasoningPurpose Of LifeChemicalsElectricityInquiryVesselFelicityCopperDecomposition
Author:Charles Babbage
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“Newness only becomes mere evil in its totalitarian format, where all the tension between individual and society, that once gave rise to the category of the new, is dissipated. Today the appeal to newness, of no matter what kind, provided only that it is archaic enough, has become universal, the omnipresent medium of false mimesis. The decomposition of the subject is consummated in his self-abandonment to an ever-changing sameness.”

KindSelfMatterEnoughTodayCultureEvilIndividualSubjectsUniversalNo Matter WhatMereMediumsAppealsTensionCategoriesAbandonmentFormatSamenessNewnessDecompositionIndividuals And SocietyMimesis
Book:Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
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“This new force, which was unknown until now, is common to organic and inorganic nature. I do not believe that this is a force entirely independent of the electrochemical affinities of matter; I believe, on the contrary, that it is only a new manifestation, but since we cannot see their connection and mutual dependence, it will be easier to designate it by a separate name. I will call this force catalytic force. Similarly, I will call the decomposition of bodies by this force catalysis, as one designates the decomposition of bodies by chemical affinity analysis.”

BelieveMatterBodyScienceNamesForceI BelieveCommonEasierConnectionsIndependentContraryAnalysisManifestationMutualChemicalsDependenceAffinityDecomposition
Author:Jons Jacob Berzelius
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