Top 113 Decadence Quotes & Sayings

Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal.

Fame introduced me to a world of instant gratification and decadence I hadn't seen before.

Religion is the biggest influence on the intellect and the decadence of a people.

To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.

The glossy surface of our civilization hides a real intellectual decadence.

My brothers and sister and I were brought up in an atmosphere which I would describe as 'Puritan decadence'. Puritanism names the behaviour which is condemned; Puritan decadence regards the name itself as indecent, and pretends that the object behind that name does not exist until it is named.

America is a country in which I see the most persistant idealism and the blandest of cynicism and the race is on between its vitality and its decadence.

Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence.

The parliamentary principle of decision by majorities only appears during quite short periods of history, and those are always periods of decadence in nations and States.

As an artist I am attracted by decadence, by those who exhaust their lives in the shallow pursuits of pleasure. Occasionally, I feel that spiritually I participate in all these kinds of lives.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

When the storytelling goes bad in a society, the result is decadence.

The vitality of a culture is in its capacity to assimilate foreign influences. The culture that's defensive and closed condemns itself to decadence.

Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately. Delightful things are all purveyors of destruction and decadence, but there is no regret if one enjoys them moderately.

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

The daily glitter of skyscrapers competing with the stars is an unnecessary, unforgivable decadence.

I don't see decadence really as what you do, because I don't do much at all that is decadent in my life. But I still am decadent. It's a state of mind, I think.

I think Illium can take care of himself.” “Not if he keeps flirting with you.” A fine, almost elegant tendril of heat, champagne and sunshine, decadence in the light. “Raphael’s not the sharing kind.

Everyone thinks of the roaring twenties and associates it with decadence and flappers, female sexual liberation, the freedom of women to express themselves, the beginning of feminism. But it was also a time of huge, huge change.

I absolutely believe that when one goes on vacation, it should be pure decadence.

Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness, which is the very basis of life. Could it think, the heart would stop beating.

I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign.

Progress of mankind is the decadence of humanity.

Decadence is wonderful.

I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.

It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. ... Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history.

When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was bankrupt and you could do whatever you want!

As a youth, I sought out decadence; as an elder, I try to avoid decay.

The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a mighty passion for the redemption of man.

Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a depressing sex affair - is an uncompromising study of American decadence displaying a sad, worn, methodical beauty few films have had since the late twenties.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

The difference between our decadence and the Russians' is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

Civilizations are built by the ceaseless toil of a succession of generations. With softness and sloth, civilizations succumb. Let us beware of decadence.

How does one make a movie about decadence these days? Now that we're allowed to do it, it's too late.

The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

Just as the body has its progress and decadence, so also has the mind, and, therefore, the mind is not the soul, because the soul can neither decay nor degenerate.

For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.

He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.

The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions.

If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline.

The desire to build a risk-free society has always been a sign of decadence. It has meant that the nation has given up, that it no longer believes in its destiny, that it has ceased to aspire to greatness, and has retired from history to pet itself.

'Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a depressing sex affair - is an uncompromising study of American decadence displaying a sad, worn, methodical beauty few films have had since the late twenties.

You gotta eat right, you gotta have healthy habits, you know, and balance out your decadence with a healthy lifestyle during the day.

I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

What we now have is the freedom which attends decadence, or the decadence which attends freedom.

I love chess, but it's the height of decadence.

America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.

Decadence attracts me. It suggests a new world, and, for me, society's struggle between life and death is absolutely beautiful.

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

One defining symptom of decadence is a fondness for vast and nonsensical extravagance.

Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future.

History shows that male homosexuality, which like prostitution flourishes with urbanization and soon becomes predictably ritualized, always tends toward decadence.

Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.

To have to fight the instincts - that is the definition of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.

I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence.

The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.