Bruce Cockburn Quotes

I do think there is this danger that our society has made its peace with decline. I'd like to jolt them out of their complacency a little bit.

What's got badly, goes badly.

I believe if you become complacent about your work, it leads to a downfall.

Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.

The stationary condition is the beginning of the end

Insanity is coasting through life.

'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.

Nothing fails like success.

Mighty cultures never - are almost never conquered. They crumble from within. And frankly, I think that a lot of Americans are acting like spoiled brats because everything isn't working out perfectly every time.

Normality is death.

History is moving the furniture around in the house of mankind just about everywhere but the U.S.A. Things have changed, except here, where people come and go through the rooms of state, and everything looks shabbier by the day, and lethargy eats away at the upholstery like an acid fog, and the walls reverberate with meaningless oratory.

All he cares about is going out there with his Jack Daniels bottle. Nothing has changed. That's kind of sad. If David was doing better than he used to be, then that would be different. But it was a joke and he made it that way.

Sometimes we get comfortable with the status quo, even when the status quo isn’t any good.

The nation which is satisfied is lost. The nation which is not progressive is retrograding.

You can't just become complacent or lazy, or then the decline happens.

When you stop adapting, you lose your edge and you can only go down.

If perfect's what you're searching for, then just stay the same.

Heard someone say, 'I can't wait until I can finally say I've made it.' The day you think you've 'made it' is the day you begin your decline.

Taking it easy is often the prelude to backsliding. Comfort precedes collapse.

The good-they cannot create; they are always the beginning of the end.

Change is almost always negative. Things degenerate.

To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.

What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.

I think a lot of people, they don't love their jobs but they don't hate them enough to quit. So they're like, "Eh."

Predictability can lead to failure.