#decline

I was convinced that she was about to tell me my card was declined, and assumed Derek wanting to talk later meant he'd soon be telling me our life was declined. Everything, everyone had reached their limits with me. ↗

— Joshua Mohr

#life #metaphor #relatable #life

I told her stories. They were only a sentence long, each one of them. That’s all I knew how to find. So I told her broken stories. The little pieces of broken stories I could find. I told her what I could. I told her that the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met. I told her that the Emperor Nero, from Rome, had a giant sea built where he could keep sea monsters and have naval battles staged for him. I told her that there had been rioting in malls all over America, and that no one knew why. I told her that the red-suited Santa Claus we know — the regular one? — was popularized by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. I told her that the White House had not confirmed or denied reports that extensive bombing had started in major cities in South America. I told her, “There’s an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we’re all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there’s nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams. ↗

— M.T. Anderson

#decline-of-civilization #excess #dreams

For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned? ↗

— Christiane Amanpour

#country #crime #decline #instance #leading

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms. ↗

— Aristotle

#degenerate #democracies #into #republics

But friends invited me to a private screening of Emmanuelle and said I'd learn a few things. But I know all the swear words. I just don't use them. So I declined. ↗

— Irene Dunne

#few #few things #friends #i #invited

With rising incomes, the share of expenditures for food products declines. The resulting shift in expenditures affects demand patterns and employment structures. ↗

— Ernst Engel

#declines #demand #employment #expenditures #food

One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as social circles widened and life became more public. ↗

— Julius Wellhausen

#been #circles #david #declined #domestic

We are equally glad and surprised at Winston's return to office. It shows that he was built for success that he should have declined to withdraw and sulk over a superficial failure. ↗

— Shane Leslie

#declined #equally #failure #glad #office

China and the U.S. have a very symbiotic relationship which will not decline any time soon. There are more shared interests as compared to shared differences and for this reason relations will continue to be good. ↗

— Mark Mobius

#china #compared #continue #decline #differences

The individual organs follow the same pattern as the whole organism, i.e. they have their period of growth, of stationary, maximum activity and then of aging decline. ↗

— Wilhelm Ostwald

#aging #decline #follow #growth #i