#decline

Young, middle-aged, elderly, old, dead: this was how life conjugated. (No, life was a noun, so this is how life declined. Yes, that was better in any case, life declined. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#age

I have the not altogether unsatisfying impression that civilisation is collapsing around me. Is it my age, I wonder, or the age we live in? I am not sure. Civilisations do collapse, after all, but on the other hand people grow old with rather greater frequency. ↗

— Theodore Dalrymple

#civilization #decline #age

My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language. ↗

— James Thurber

#decline #english #english language #expression #fact

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

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

Agressive music can only shock you once. Afterwards its impact declines. It's inevitable. ↗

— Brian Eno

#agressive #declines #impact #inevitable #music

I decline all noisy, wordy, confused, and personal controversies. ↗

— Josiah Warren

#controversies #decline #i #noisy #personal

It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring. ↗

— Samuel P. Huntington

#certainly #civilization #decline #dominant #into