#decline

Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#complacency #corruption #decline #misgovernment #political-philosophy

Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it with her best blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country. ↗

— Oswald Spengler

#men

A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the opinions of crowds and their growing indifference and lack of respect for all general beliefs. ↗

— Gustave Le Bon

#crowds #decline #indifference #the-masses #respect

The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play. ↗

— Oswald Spengler

#journalist

What I'm primarily saying,' he says, 'is that this is a time for knowledge assimilation, not backstabbing. We learned a lesson, you and I. We personally grew. Gratitude for this growth is an appropriate response. Gratitude, and being careful never to make the same mistake twice. ↗

— George Saunders

#narcissism #personal-growth #personal-growth

Since the decline of record companies and music sales, I've always played live. ↗

— Adam Ant

#companies #decline #i #live #music

ON the decline of the Roman power, about five centuries after Christ, the countries of Northern Europe were left almost destitute of a national government. ↗

— Thomas Bulfinch

#after #almost #centuries #christ #countries

By use you possess gain; by disuse you decline and lose. ↗

— Edwin Louis Cole

#disuse #gain #lose #possess #use

Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice. ↗

— Moshe Dayan

#american #arms #decline #friends #money

I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France. ↗

— Jacques Delors

#decline #europe #france #i #myself