Downfall Quotes

Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love. ~ Leon Uris

In the early stages the sexual needs will have the upper hand, in later stages the compulsive moralistic inhibition. At times of political upheavals of the total social organization, the conflict between sexuality and compulsive morality becomes most acute. This will impress some people as the "collapse of morality," other people as "sexual revolution." At any rate, the idea of the "decline of culture" is the perception of the breakthrough of natural sexuality. The only reason why it is experienced subjectively as "decline" is the fact that it threatens the compulsive moralistic way of living. What happens objectively is only the downfall of the sexual dictatorship which maintains the compulsive moralistic forces in the individuals in the interest of authoritarian marriage and family. ~ Wilhelm Reich

There you go, being human again,' said the Doctor. He put an arm around Rose, and hugged her to him. 'It's not fair, is it, when we're forced into pitying someone we hate. Feels lik the world's turned topsy-turvy. But it's all right. You're still allowed to hate them. As long as you don't gloat at their downfall, that's all. ~ Jacqueline Rayner

When under the influence of certain (or some) reasons (or causes) (alcohol, war, etc - added Spir here) the low instincts are unbridled (or unrestrained), the brute appears (or come forward, "apparait", Fr.) and rule over (or dominate), stifling every ("toute", Fr.) noble, generous impulse; it is then the ruin (or downfall or decline) of any humanity in man. ~ African Spir

For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall? ~ Augustine Of Hippo

One of the remarkable things about my career is that it has been marked by steady, incremental progress. No sudden spikes up, and no sudden downfalls, either. ~ Phil Hartman

Then, after picking up his papers, Pierre began: "A beautiful woman can be the downfall of a gentleman . . . but the uplift of a beggar! ~ Ted Anthony Roberts

I leave you two things, which, if you hold fast to them shall preserve you from all error: the Book of Allah, and my Sunna. Your downfall begins with your departure from these two. ~ Hajjah Amina Adil

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. ~ Adolf Hitler

The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don't know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that's just what we cannot do with the mystery…. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Listen, our history is a history...of failed revolutions. Always, in the end, someone was bought or someone turned traitor. We are a nation of traitors. We are a nation of traitors...we delight in seeing the downfall of others, even friends. ~ F. Sionil Jose

It will come all right in the end. There is the steady impulse of your determination that sets you on your feet again after every downfall and breakdown. Gradually the obstacles are all overcome and your current becomes stronger. Everything comes right in the end. Steady determination is what is required. ~ Ramana Maharshi

Said by Maltcassion the Dragon:
"Humans," he scoffed. "Always so inquiring about stuff. Never satisfied with the status quo. It will be your downfall, but oddly enough, it´s also one of your more endearing features."
"Do we have any otheres?"
"Oy yes, plenty. ~ Jasper Fforde

My big downfall is deep-dish pizza from Chicago. That is why I can't go vegan - I can't give up cheese. I can't give up dairy. ~ Parvesh Cheena

I think it's a bit silly to brand the Internet as the 'downfall of youth.' ~ Ernest Cline

Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history. ~ Emile M. Cioran

Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what 'is' for what 'should be' pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; ~ David Mitchell

I have chosen a life that depends on one's awareness that every breath may be his last, every step may bring his downfall, and every word may stir betrayal. In truth, I must live in conscious ignorance of the mere thread that holds my life aloft, trusting that God alone has the power to sever it, and that He will do so only when my work on earth is complete. ~ Nicole Sager

THE PROJECTIONIST
The projectionist can make you believe whatever she believes. If she believes interest rates are going to fall, and you have a short conversation with the Projectionist, you will too. If she believes that, no, in fact, you didn't signal when you turned left, causing the Projectionist to ram her car into the back of yours, so will you.
Her downfall began when she fell in love with the Inverse. She absolutely, 100% fell in love with the Inverse. She projected all this emotion onto him but the Inverse, being the Inverse, simply reflected the opposite of everything she was sending.
Strangely, neither the Inverse nor the Projectionist can let go of the relationship. ~ Andrew Kaufman

We have self-centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness, which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall. ~ Joko Beck

Most men need their wives to need them, and I've seen that lead to their downfall ~ Laird Hamilton

Service of the ego is the first step towards the downfall of man. Service of the truth is the first step towards the rise of man. Being able to see one's own ego is the beginning of one's spiritual progress. ~ Sirshree

A woman on the verge of moral downfall ought to be well dressed. Claire's particular transgression was gartered to her thigh, a paper hidden by yards of silk. She walked through the empty alley, confident in one comforting truth: no one dared ask a lady what her skirts concealed... ~ Gina Conkle

But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The conditions of its origin; its relationship to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of disturbances which, during the state of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they engender; then the dream's evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it - all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical significance of the dream, its position with regard to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological function; secondly, has the dream a meaning - can sense be made of each single dream as of other mental syntheses? ~ Sigmund Freud

That's always my downfall on tour: the food. I just want to eat everything. ~ King Tuff

16 When the wicked are in authority, sin flourishes, but the godly will live to see their downfall. ~ Anonymous

It was the downfall of love, Lamia thought wistfully, that it inspired the lover to toss away any shred of caution just to obtain the pure, desperate pleasure of talking about the beloved. ~ Shamim Sarif

Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature.

Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic, revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas, methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and medieval morals- the basis of the old social structure-being by their nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the circumstances which made the World War inevitable. ~ Alfred Korzybski

Every generation has a macabre notion that wars, government prohibition, natural disasters or mankind itself could be the downfall of society and the world as a whole. ~ Lauren DeStefano

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! ~ C. JoyBell C.

It's about time to see the downfall of the scorecards of who's right and who's wrong. At the end of the day, what's important is that you feel good. ~ Eve Evangelista

God is only as far as we imagine Him to be. It's our fleshly desire not to run to Him that is ultimately our downfall. ~ Alan De Jager

I stop reading after half an hour. I've had enough. Humanity has hit a brick wall. We're facing our end, like the dinosaurs millions of years before us. The only difference is we've got journalists on hand to document every blow and setback, cataloguing our rapid, painful downfall in vibrant, vicious detail. Personally, I think the dinosaurs had the better deal. When it comes to impending, unavoidable extinction, ignorance is bliss. ~ Darren Shan

No society has succeeded in abolishing the distinction between ruler and ruled ... to be a ruler gives one special status and, usually, special privileges. During the Communist era, important officials in the Soviet Union had access to special shops selling delicacies unavailable to ordinary citizens; before China allowed capitalist enterprises in its economy, travelling by car was a luxury limited to tourists and those high in the party hierarchy Throughout the 'communist' nations, the abolition of the old ruling class was followed by the rise of a new class of party bosses and well-placed bureaucrats, whose behaviour and life-style came more and more to resemble that of their much-denounced predecessors. In the end, nobody believed in the system any more. That, couple with its inability to match the productivity of the less bureaucratically controlled, more egoistically driven capitalist economies, led to its downfall. ~ Peter Singer

Niggas pray and pray on my downfall, But every time I hit the ground I bounce up like round ball ~ Jay-Z

One's lack of confidence over oneself contributes to one's downfall, even if such a downfall is avoidable. It diminishes whatever probabilities there are of overcoming the hurdles on the path to our success. It strips us of our ability to win a battle even when the circumstances favor us. Most of our strength, capacity and resilience gets nullified when we harbor the slightest of doubts over our own adequacies. The more the sense of insecurity, the closer we move towards defeat. ~ Nihar Satpathy

His lips thinned in frustration like I should already know the answer. He inched closer until his knee touched mine, his eyes, curious and intense, boring into me. "Because you move like fire rushing across a floor," he said his voice hushed, velvety smooth, "like flames licking up a wall." The rest of the world crumbled away as he lifted my chin. "Your energy is liquid and hot. Even from a distance you burn, you scorch anyone who gets too close. You are wine on my tongue and honey in my veins, and I cannot get enough of you." He leaned forward and whispered into my ear. His warm breath sent shivers cascading over my body. "You intoxicate me, Lorelei McAlister. You will be my downfall. ~ Darynda Jones

They say when you reach a crossroad or a turning point in life, it really doesn't matter how we got there, but it's what we do next after we got there. Usually you arrive there by adversity, and then it is then and only then that we find out who we truly are and what we're truly made of. It's a process, a gift and a journey, and if we can travel it alone, although the road may be rough at the beginning, you find an ability to walk it. A way to start fresh again. It's neither a downfall nor a failure, but a new beginning. ~ Paris Hilton

He who prides himself upon wealth and honor hastens his own downfall. ~ Laozi

Fake friends drill holes under your boat and destroy your relationship that could otherwise have been great. They will pretend that they love you, yet they are secretly working overtime on your downfall. It's up to you to know and understand the real reasons why you keep certain people in your life. It's never too late to get rid of dead wood. ~ Itayi Garande

I feel like the downfall of any person is the second an artist starts celebrating their work themselves, that becomes problematic. ~ Questlove

All I said was that I thought it was a judgement from God that Blyth had first lost his leg and then had the replacement become the instrument of his downfall. All because of the rabbits. Eric, who was going through a religious phase at the time which I suppose I was to some extent copying, thought this was a terrible thing to say; God wasn't like that. I said the one I believed in was. ~ Iain Banks

Djinn were cursed with a terminal curiosity. It was often their worst weakness, and sometimes it was their downfall.
Khalil was no exception. If a door was open, he peeked through it. If it was closed, it made the peeking so much better. If the door was locked, well. There was a natural progression to this sort of thing. ~ Thea Harrison

Never assume that you have attained truth. Don't make any claim to knowledge. Form no conclusion or evaluation concerning truth. The minute you do, your downfall is assured. Whenever you imagine you know something, you cease being open to the living exploration. You have closed a door and cut off the oxygen to the breathing truth. ~ Mooji

One such question revolved around the informal institution of black kids eating together in the cafeteria. I'm going to let you in on a secret: growing black children like to eat. In a majority-white school, they are often friends with other black people. This has been known to result in black kids eating together at the same table. While this terrorist cell–like activity is a perceived clear and present danger to some in the non-black community, the agenda at most of these nefarious, exclusive gatherings consisted of talking about classes, flirting, making fun of each other, and, oh, plotting the downfall of White America - but only on every third Tuesday. ~ Baratunde R. Thurston

Nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society. You take a large city like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago-their water supply comes from hundreds of miles away and any interruption of that, or food, or power for any period of time, you're going to have riots in the streets. Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with goods and services, that you don't need nuclear warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall. ~ Gene Roddenberry

It's my downfall. I like sugar. I like fast cars. I like sexy men. ~ Kitty French

You've been downgraded from a thrill-kill to a simple bill-kill. (Nykyrian)
Bill-kill? (Kiara)
Kill you any way possible and send the bill in for payment. (Nykyrian)
I can't believe that someone's life can be bartered and sold so easily. That it's so common that there are even names for the different ways to take a person's life. For torturing them? My God, what is wrong with you people? (Kiara)
We're not the ones who are sick, mu Tara. With us –the predators– you know what we'll do and why we do it. What we're capable of. We make no bones about it and we wear the uniform so that you can see us coming. The ones who are sickening are the cowards who masquerade as sheep. The ones who lull you into trusting them and smile at your face while they plot your downfall behind your back for any number of psychotic reasons. The friends who turn on you out of jealousy or greed. Who try to ruin you for no reason at all. They are the ones who should be put down. And they're the ones who are truly sickening. (Nykyrian) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The sky will fall, a star will rise
Ambar changed by the king's demise
Her magic untouched and unknown by all
Marked with a star, she'll bring his downfall. ~ Tanaz Bhathena

I, for my part, acknowledge another precept which says that man must deal the final blow to those whose downfall is destined by God. ~ Adolf Hitler

From triumph to downfall is but a step. I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

I'm a food addict, that's my downfall. ~ Valerie Bertinelli

No matter what players say or people say, you want to be liked and appreciated, even if you've had a downfall. ~ Jason Giambi

When your outflow exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall ~ Jim Rohn

He had hours of paperwork ahead of him. All this paper would one day be the downfall of the Empire. ~ Arthur Slade

Your very success is what's going to destroy you. The survival mechanism that you've developed is the very thing which will cause the downfall of your subtle physical body. ~ Frederick Lenz

My father used to claim that inanimate objects hate us and plot our downfall behind our backs. He was probably right. ~ Michael Marshall Smith

There is no sanctity. This is the downfall of innocence. ~ Nadege Richards

Many Nigerians believe that Babangida 'institutionalized corruption', yet few admit their own complicity in creating the situation where corruption became the norm. The citizenry are simultaneously victims, accomplices and active participants in their own corrupt downfall. Corruption in Nigeria is not just an offshoot of collapsed social and governmental institutions, nor is it the result of a hostile economic environment. The roots go much deeper and are more symptomatic of a residual breakdown of Nigerian societal values and morality. It is the result of a nationwide refusal to condemn dishonesty... While the government must take blame for not cracking down on corruption, the public deserves its share of blame for encouraging it, and letting the government get away with it. ~ Max Siollun

As far as we can look back into history, the downfall of any nation can be traced from the moment that nation became timid about spending its best blood. ~ Frederick Russell Burnham

In despair and extreme distress, men and women prophesy the downfall of their enemies and the victory of their own cause, simply to vent their rage or indignation, to strengthen their resistance, to amass courage in the face of death. ~ Ágnes Heller

Wherever there is a religious regime, over there there is ignorance, misery and absurdity! No religious state can ever elevate its own people! Sooner or later, the primitiveness of the religious administrations and the irrationality of the religious rules will cause a great collapse of those countries! The downfall is inevitable! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I shook hands with the attorney, advising him to forgive the cat he had banished from his offices since a child had been the downfall of the bird, not a feline at all. The scratches on the birdcage were months old, while the small, sticky chocolate fingerprints on the cage door were less than a week old. He looked shocked and glanced wordlessly over at his birdcage, so I walked over to the nearest window to point to the matching chocolate fingerprints where a child had released the budgie into the skies of Toronto. ~ Angela Misri

That like I best that flies beyond my reach.
Set me to scale the high pyramids
And thereon set the diadem of France;
I'll either rend it with my nails to nought,
Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,
Although my downfall be the deepest hell. ~ Christopher Marlowe

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore. Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me? ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

The optimist sees the glass half full. The pessimist sees the glass half empty. The chemist sees the glass completely full, half in liquid state and half in gaseous, both of which is probably poisonous. ~ Weike Wang

Haile Selassie was not an evil man, but his priorities were misplaced. He was so concerned with establishing a strong central government and modernizing the country that he failed to meet the challenge of natural disaster ... It was his false pride, this lack of courage to admit mistakes, that brought about his downfall. ~ Haile Selassie

The beauty of a financial institution is that there are a lot of ways to go to hell in a bucket. You can push credit too far, do a dumb acquisition, leverage yourself excessively - it's not just derivatives [that can bring about your downfall]. ~ Charlie Munger

Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list. ~ Mengistu Haile Mariam

Casual?" Elam halted and crossed his arms. "My good horse, there's a big difference between casual and confident. I am aware of the danger, but ... I want to maintain a confident mind-set in full assurance of faith, otherwise my heart might melt within me." ... "Take care that your confidence does not swell into arrogance, for that is the downfall of every man of pride. ~ Bryan Davis

He grinned, a woman's downfall wrought in a simple stretch of his lips. It was her downfall, certainly, her personal undoing because she never saw the expression outside their private chambers. It was her exclusive domain and never failed to turn her knees wobbly. ~ Ashlyn Macnamara

The simultaneous decline of the European nation-state and growth of antisemitic movements, the coincident downfall of nationally organized Europe and the extermination of Jews, which was prepared for by the victory of antisemitism over all competing isms in the preceding struggle for persuasion of public opinion, have to be taken as a serious indication of the source of antisemitism. Modern ~ Hannah Arendt

I'm a patient person. I think that's one thing that I feel comfortable I can deal with - the downfall and the errors, as long as I see progress and people trying. ~ Phil Jackson

Fear, more than anything else, is the root of our destruction."

"Destruction?" Aribella asked with a hint of disbelief she didn't bother to hide. "How does one blazing summer herald the downfall of the kingdom?"

"Fear always leads to destruction. Whether it is today or in another ten years, it will come eventually. ~ Annie Jackson

Those who pray for your downfall are concentrating negative thoughts towards you, without taking cognisance of the slippery ground in which they are standing, which could lead to their downfall. ~ Michael Bassey

You're in love, my old friend, and that is the downfall of all good men. ~ Christine Feehan

The saucy Miss Tottenham slipped the strawberry into her delectable mouth, all the while looking at Cyrus. His thigh muscles tensed inside the velvet prison of his breeches. Hot pleasure shot through his body at the sight of the red berry slipping through her lips. Adding to his misery, a spurt of juice from the tender morsel painted her bottom lip red. He nearly groaned.
Tradition named the apple as the fruit of man's downfall, but tonight he'd argue mightily for the dangers of a ripe strawberry on a certain woman's lips. ~ Gina Conkle

Sin - plain, old-fashioned sin, the self-same sin which caused Adam's downfall - is what we are all suffering from today, and it will do us far more harm than good to try to dress it up with a fancy, more attractive label. ~ Billy Graham

Greetings, O Great Gazoo. How nice of you to join us here on planet Earth again. (Cael)
Thanks, Barney. How's Betty and Bam Bam doing? (Acheron)
Great, if I could only get them away from Wilma and Pebbles. Those women are nothing but trouble. (Cael)
Nah, they're good women. It's the ones in red who are always the downfall of good men. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

By changing a single thought, we begin to uplift ourselves and our communities. We must cultivate noble thinking. When we harbor thoughts that are acquisitive, selfish, and divisive, based in fear and greed, our actions will lead to our own downfall and harm society. The purpose of our human life is to implement practices that uplift us and help society. ~ Brahmrishi Vishvatma Bawra

We have truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and the Spirit to guard us. We have the Word of God to battle for us. Through it all we pray to the Spirit to protect and guide us against the schemes of the devil. In this way we can fight against and overcome the spiritual forces that are set against us and committed to our downfall. We can wage war against and defeat the spiritual forces that seek to lead us away from discernment by offering a clever and subtle counterfeit of the truth. ~ Tim Challies

Leaving religious texts open too interpretation is the downfall of religion itself. If it is truly the word of God then there is no room for interpretation; you either take all of it or none. There is no selective belief ~ Stephen Colbert

So, it's a delicate thing, but at the same time our producers and writers are very much aware of the potential downfall that could ensue so I think they're going to be very careful about how they do that. At the same time I don't think they want to leave the characters in the same holding pattern that they've been in for a while. I think that they're all trying to put the characters in a different situation. ~ Emily Deschanel

Amy [Winehouse] increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that YouTube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions, or death. ~ Russell Brand

A lot of people don't think my brother has a temper. It's like they assume I somehow sucked up the entire quota of "cranky," and now Shaun's perpetually cheery and ready for a challenge while I glower at people from behind my sunglasses and plot the downfall of the Western world. ~ Mira Grant

With the mega-fame came the mega-downfall - you know, with the press and everything - and at a young age, it was very stressful to me. ~ Vanilla Ice

THE DOWNFALL OF ambition is sometimes letting life pass you by and only realizing it did so after the fact. ~ Claire Contreras

Our need to knock celebrities is ... Twisted: it's deep in the mid-brain below the survival instinct. That lust to see a downfall. It's animalistic. ~ Peaches Geldof

Games don't distract us from our real lives. They fill our real lives: with positive emotions, positive activity, positive experiences, and positive strengths. Games aren't leading us to the downfall of human civilization. They're leading us to its reinvention. ~ Jane McGonigal

Humanity's greatest strength - and also the reason for its ultimate downfall - is its ability to normalize even the bizarre. ~ David Yoon

We all think we've got one more boxing match in us, and that, probably, will be the downfall of Floyd Mayweather, George Foreman, Manny Pacquiao. We'll overstay our welcome. ~ George Foreman

War is what Homo sapiens do best. ~ Gerald Maclennon

I like food too much to go on some crazy diet. French fries are my favorite downfall. ~ Holly Madison

Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men.
Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

The availability of choice is the downfall of mankind. ~ Haresh Sippy

He was in late age, yet his tradecraft had never been better; for the first time in his career, he held the advantage over his old adversary.

On the other hand, that adversary had acquired a human face of disconcerting clarity. It was no brute whom Smiley was pursuing with such mastery, no unqualified fanatic after all, no automaton. It was a man; and one whose downfall, if Smiley chose to bring it about, would be caused by nothing more sinister than excessive love, a weakness with which Smiley himself, from his own tangled life, was eminently familiar. ~ John Le Carre

Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view. ~ Wassily Kandinsky

If political scientists couldn't predict the downfall of the Soviet Union - perhaps the most important event in the latter half of the twentieth century - then what exactly were they good for? ~ Nate Silver

Even though their crimes were completely different, the one thing the maladjusted genius Ted Kaczynski and the sadistic but banal underachiever Dennis Rader shared was a monumental sense of ego. Neither one of them could bear to let his brilliance go unrecognized by the public, and that was their downfall in both cases. ~ John E. Douglas

FAILURE IS INEVITABLE. I will fail. We all will. And having failed, and gotten back up, and failed again, taught me that I can survive failure. This is a downfall in most modern stories: the hero always wins. Because while this story is inspiring, it's also false. In reality, not everyone wins. It's 100% true that no one wills all the time, and we expect that - every hero must fall at least once. But it's also 100% true that some people never win at all, and that's the thing we try so hard to ignore behind the pretty stories. I could spend the rest of my life trying to be a prima ballerina, and it would not happen. I would fail at that for the rest of my life. FAILURE TEACHES US WHO WE ARE. Because even though I know I would fail forever at being a prima ballerina, I also know that I am not someone who should be a prima ballerina. It's not who I am, it's not what I want. Of course I would fail at it. ~ Beth Revis