Dying Civilizations Quotes

In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. ~ Eric Ambler

Sometimes a man can be a lot like a farm. He lets his heart lay fallow for a while, and instead of his feelings dying out, they just go dormant, his emotions growing deeper and stronger as time passes. A person only needs to clear away the weeds on the surface to uncover them. ~ Linda Kage

But then you become closed. Then you start dying as far as your intelligence is concerned because intelligence needs the open sky, the wind, the air, the sun in order to grow, to expand, to flow. To remain alive it needs a constant flow; if it becomes stagnant it becomes slowly slowly a dead phenomenon. ~ Rajneesh

[In my dream] they slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain ... I can't struggle, I can't stop laughing, I can't resist these people who once were. ~ Carrie Ryan

If someone tells you that you're too sensitive, grab a knife and point it at them with intention. As soon as they react with fear, tell them that there's no such thing as sensitive people. Only people that are more connected to their heart than others, that are so selfish that can only react when afraid of dying. It's never about being sensitive but spiritual evolution. Many humans are simply below what a common dog or pig would easily understand without the use of fear. ~ Robin Sacredfire

It's maddening in my travels to watch children dying simply because they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time. ~ Nicholas Kristof

Her granny was asleep and Mary knew it was special, this trip. It was something that hadn't been planned. It was actually impossible. Four generations of women
"I'm a woman," Mary said to herself
heading off on a journey in a car. One of them dead, one of them dying, one of them driving, one of them just starting out. ~ Roddy Doyle

Ah cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They are They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood
never! ~ Albert Camus

Our understanding of who we are, where we came from, how the world works, and what matters in life depends on partaking of the vast and ever-expanding store of knowledge. Though unlettered hunters, herders, and peasants are fully human, anthropologists often comment on their orientation to the present, the local, the physical. To be aware of one's country and its history, of the diversity of customs and beliefs across the globe and through the ages, of the blunders and triumphs of past civilizations, of the microcosms of cells and atoms and the macrocosms of planets and galaxies, of the ethereal reality of number and logic and pattern - such awareness truly lifts us to a higher plane of consciousness. It is a gift of belonging to a brainy species with a long history. ~ Steven Pinker

I'm not going anywhere without you. We're swimming to China together. And if the worst happens, I'm dying with you before I'm living without you. ~ Ann Brashares

Somewhere in there Clear Sky could be dying - and there's nothing I can do about it. ~ Erin Hunter

Despair was their God; divine misery, exhaustion and death. God is nothing more than divine absurdity. God is an expression of human weakness. The dying called on God. I saw it for myself, I heard their cries. God is a fancy word that binds us to reality. In Auschwitz there was no God. ~ Rosie Glacér

So, unlike the heroes of Hebrews 11 who held onto nothing of this life, these dying churches held onto everything, at least everything that made them comfortable and happy. Such is the reason we speak of them in the past. ~ Thom S. Rainer

Political Correctness is like a poison flowing through the veins of a dying nation. ~ Rich Holland

Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now. ~ Arnold Joseph Toynbee

To confront death, in any guise, is to identify with the victim and face what is unsettling and sobering ~ E.B. White

Genius is a talent only for living, those who possess it have little gift for dying. ~ Janet Flanner

Life is short, no matter how many days you are granted. People are precious, each and everyone, no matter how many your are lucky enough to have in you life. Love... Love is worth dying for ~ J.R. Ward

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.'
- Traveller ~ Steven Erikson

Sometimes I think about dying. And then I wonder about going to hell. And then I think that if and when I go there, the place will be completely organized and run by lost souls, with a council and a works committee and an ethics panel, and I'll feel right at home. ~ Charles Sheffield

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life ~ St. Jerome

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. The was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure".

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!

All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed ~ Smedley D. Butler

Come, fly with me!" cried the goddess, as she sped ahead of them, her extremities flaming with a comet tail of sparks in the supernatural wind. Her bubbling voice again echoed, her laughter bounced in the crystalline void, and she flew onward, unto eternity....

"Stop!" cried Elasirr. "Come back with us to the true world, O Tilirreh!"

At which the orange one laughed, throwing her head back, saying, "Oh, but don't you know this is the one true world? It is but yours that is a pale specter, that is the dying place of dwindling truth?"

"Then come back with us, lady," whispered Ranhé, "and restore the truth as it once was. ~ Vera Nazarian

We have lost, being born, as much as we shall lose dying: Everything! ~ Emil Cioran

My dying tutor told me that he would like to live till I had been a poet, but Death was much of Mob as I could master-then-And when far afterward-a sudden light on Orchards, or a new fashion in the wind troubled my attention- I felt a palsy, here- the Verses just relieve- (174) ~ Emily Dickinson

Empires collapse,
Civilizations disappear,
Health deteriorates
And bodies turn to ash,
But life will always go on ~ Mouloud Benzadi

Fear is not shaking, knowing that you are going to be harmed. Fear is not sweating profusely because you can't do anything else. Fear is not hiding under your bed or under your sheets or in your closet because you know the monsters are trying to find you. Fear is not having nightmares about these monsters because you know you cannot escape them. Fear is not anything I have experienced in my sixteen years of life. Fear is the feeling that a block of ice has been dropped into your stomach and it's slowly melting sending poison coursing through your veins, rooting you to where you stand. Fear is knowing that there is nothing you can do about your current situation. You can't run or hide or escape even in your dreams. Fear is not the knowledge that you're going to be hurt, but the knowledge that you can do nothing to stop what is coming. Fear is learning that the person you love most has been dying for you over and over again because they value your life over their own. ~ Annie Ortiz

There are many things which swallow up men's thoughts while they live, which they will think little of when they are dying. Hundreds are wholly absorbed in political schemes and seem to care for nothing but the advancement of their own party. Myriads are buried in business and money matters and seem to neglect everything else but this world. ~ J.C. Ryle

We born dyin' ... But you ask a man an' he talk like he gonna live forevah. ~ Walter Mosley

He understood that he shared certain features, habits and history with the war hero. But he was not him. He'd just had more success at living than at dying, ~ Richard Flanagan

Like raindrops, beautiful women were every-where. Like raindrops, only a few ever landed on you. They would either soak into your constitution or drip away into that puddle of other former love disasters drying out; dying in the Bangkok sun.
Red Night Zone - Bangkok City ~ James A. Newman

I twist my fingers through his hair, press my lips to his cheek. The words tangle in my throat, being born and dying a thousand times. I love you. ~ Emily Henry

I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING. ~ Holly Black

When you were dying, Edward quickly discovered, people would let you do pretty much whatever you wanted. So he made some new unofficial decrees:
1. The king was allowed to sleep in as long as he wished.
2. The king no longer had to wear seven layers of elaborate, jewel-encrusted clothing. Or silly hats with feathers. Or pants that resembled pumpkins. Or tights. From now on, unless it was a special occasion, he was fine in just a simple shirt and trousers.
3. Dessert was to be served first. Blackberry pie, preferably. With whipped cream.
4. The king would no longer be taking part in any more dreary studies. His fine tutors had filled his head with enough history, politics and philosophy to last him two lifetimes, and as he was unlikely to get even half of one lifetime, there was no need for study. No more lessons, he decided. No more books. No more tutors' dirty looks.
5. The king was now going to reside in the top of the southeast turret, where he could sit in the window ledge and gaze out at the river for as long as he liked.
6. No one at court would be allowed to say the following words or phrases: affliction, illness,
malady, sickness, disease, disorder, ailment, infirmity, convalescence, indisposition, malaise,
plight, plague, poor health, failing health, what's going around, or your condition. Most of all, no one was allowed to say the word dying.
And finally (and perhaps most importantly, for the sake of our story)
7. ~ Cynthia Hand

In days gone by, we were afraid of dying in dishonor or a state of sin. Nowadays, we are afraid of dying fools. Now the fact is that there is no Extreme Unction to absolve us of foolishness. We endure it here on earth as subjective eternity. ~ Jean Baudrillard

I go to the shelf and pick out a few poetry books to take with me. A few old favorites and a few I haven't gotten to yet. As I slip the books into my carry-on, it occurs to me that there really are a lot of poems about death, that I've always read many poems about dying, but had almost never noticed them before. They were always the ones I lightly skimmed, and I thought that maybe I could start reading these poems more carefully. It was almost nothing, but it was also a decision about my life. ~ Jacob Wren

Embrace death, dance with it a while, and finally fall prey to it. ~ Darren Shan

He dreaded the supermarket line chitchat. He waited until the postal service lady had knocked on the door, left the package, and gotten in her vehicle to open his door. His dog dying had been bad, I could tell, but the worst part for him had been trying to figure out how to handle the pity of the vet assistants. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The eruption had hurled the thing out of its normal environment, deep down in the flaming atmosphere of the sun. It was a miracle that it had survived its journey through space; already it must be dying, as the forces that controlled its huge, invisible body lost their hold over the electrified gas which was the only substance it possessed. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move ...
"Kill me now Dumbledore ... "
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again ...
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy ... ~ J.K. Rowling

While his brain lay slowly dying, Bevan felt his body come back to life. ~ Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality.' As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits
barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them. ~ Ian Fleming

That is perhaps what we seek throughout life, that and nothing more, the greatest possible sorrow so as to become fully ourselves before dying. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

Boredom is easy. Which is why sadness hides there so readily. But don't be fooled for long. Dying of boredom. There's reason behind that idiom. It'll kill you sure enough. ~ Adam Haslett

Even in the worst of times, the Tamils had not expected the Sri Lankan army to shell the sick and dying. ~ Rohini Mohan

On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived. ~ Chris Cleave

Mam said I was growing up. I felt that I was dying. ~ Delia Sherman

Death is just one more Path. One you'll come to in time. ~ Jim Butcher