William Wordsworth Quotes

One of the things that I'm fascinated about generally is the rise and fall of everything, from civilizations to families to companies.

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.

Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man ... cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.

He removed several pages of death certificates, which were picked up by another breeze and sent into the trees. Some would fall with the leaves that September. Some would fall with the trees generations later.

Our bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.

Everything that rises sets, and everything that grows, grows old.

It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction.

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

Every dog hath its day

The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance.

Nothing can stay great forever, and nothing can stay horrible forever.

Civilisations which get cut off from their traditions and values do not survive for long.

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

Monuments, like men, submit to fate.

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man.

All things that have form eventually decay." -Orochimaru

Fade, flowers, fade! Nature will have it so; 'tis but what we in our autumn do.

All things which exist in time must perish