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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.
-- Cyril Connolly
1903-1974, British Critic
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.
-- Ernest Hemingway
1898-1961, American Writer
Every
civilization when it loses its inner vision and its cleaner
energy, falls into a new sort of sordidness, more vast and
more stupendous than the old savage sort. An Augean stable
of metallic filth.
-- D. H. Lawrence
1885-1930, British Author
Men first feel
necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort,
still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow
dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their
substance.
-- Giambattista Vico
1688-1744, Italian
Philosopher, Historian
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