War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

There is no such thing as death. In nature nothing dies. From each sad remnant of decay some forms of life arise so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.

Among the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together in religious societies may not be one of the least.

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

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall and increases but to decay.

Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation plan carefully before making a move and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.

Harmony makes small things grow lack of it makes great things decay.

Government is an evil it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise government will of itself decay.

False friendship like the ivy decays and ruins the walls it embraces but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.

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

Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask if we cannot trust the Bible what can we trust?

Writing a novel is a terrible experience during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams which nature can't touch with decay.

On the basis of biological sociological and historical knowledge we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay but the sum total of individual achievement for better or worse lives on in the immortality of The Larger.

Everything will change. The only question is growing up or decaying.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

A government for protecting business only is but a carcass and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

It's art that pushes against psychological and social expectations that tries to transform decay into something generative that is replicative in a baroque way that isn't about progress and wants to - as Walt Whitman put it - 'contain multitudes.'

In a decaying society art if it is truthful must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

Writers may be disreputable incorrigible early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

Age is not all decay it is the ripening the swelling of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husk.

Middle age is youth without levity and age without decay.

A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sad and melancholy prospects of decay it would give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.