#decadence

They had...finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end. ↗

— Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly

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#death #decadence #dissolution #life #death

Ah! I wish I had the courage to work for the debasement of my contemporaries. What good work it would be to defile their daughters: to insinuate something obscene into the infantile hands which caress each paternal beard and cheek; to poison them, even at the risk of perishing ourselves; to do as those Spanish monks did, who drank death in order that they might persuade the French rabble which had violated their monastery to do likewise. ↗

— Remy de Gourmont

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#life #mankind #courage