Ellen Glasgow Quotes

The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.

A nation never falls but by suicide.

Historically, if you look at great civilizations, why do they crumble? Is it because of what's outside or because of something internal? It's always internal. It is.

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder

Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.

Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal.

To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.

In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water.

I want to collapse. I want to fall on the sidewalk right there and drag myself to the ivy.

Great nations do not succumb through lost wars, but rather through racial decay and the destruction of their internal order.

Betrayal isn't ridiculous. It's the reason empires fall.

And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.

A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay.

The nation's morals are like its teeth: the more decayed they are the more it hurts to touch them.

Things seem to fall apart inevitably.

What emerges from the silence is the deafening sound of an old world disintegrating.

My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.

If gold rusts, what then can iron do?

We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.

Everything is destroyed by its own particular vice: the destructive power resides within. Rust destroys iron, moths destroy clothes, the worm eats away the wood; but greatest of all evils is envy, impious habitant of corrupt souls, which ever was, is, and shall be a consuming disease.

We're in a decaying culture now. Naturally, the young people in the culture are going to feel themselves to be products of the decay.

Countries are like fruit-the worms are always inside.

All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.

By 'life,' we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.