Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

We are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and peoples.

Because of our sin, we as individuals and as a nation continue to experience a decline in moral values and beliefs. Our sinful behavior has resulted in increasing rates of unmarried adolescent and adult sexual activity, the birth of children to unwed mothers, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and decreasing marital fidelity. These are all signs of the decline of our culture.

Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption, also.

There's been cultural rot since there's been culture.

The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

Whatever Romney's failings, he certainly doesn't suggest that the United States is teetering on the brink of a moral cesspool.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

It's too hard for me to comment on the sorry state of our culture.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Too much freedom can lead to the soul's decay.

The beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Civilizations do not give out, they give in. They come apart not in a flash but by the inch. In a society where anything goes, everything eventually will.

Corruption is responsible in large measure for the broken promises, the dashed hopes and the shallow dreams that have characterized the existence of the multitude of Nigerians in the last few decades. The choice before us is clear: We either go to war against corruption in all its ramifications or we shall soon be totally consumed by this hydra-headed dragon.

For there is nothing so social by nature, [and] so unsocial by its corruption, as this race.

The community standards in New York are so low that nothing is obscene.

The youth movement here must aspire to a martyrdom death…. The young must be first at the front line - don’t hide at the back. You must be at the front, die as martyrs and all your sins will be forgiven. This is how to achieve forgiveness.

Gaming is among the surest means to debauch a people, and draw them from God and his worship to superstition and idolatry.

I don’t think that a society that sanctifies death can prevail.

All you got to do is look around. This country's getting worse and worse and more and more immoral, and we're rotting from within.