The vitality of a culture is in its capacity to assimilate foreign influences. The culture that's defensive and closed condemns itself to… — Juan Goytisolo Copy Share Image
“By living a life “against nature,” the deviant or pervert becomes a hero or heroine in decadent fiction.” — Asti Hustvedt Copy Share Image
For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence. — Kehinde Wiley Copy Share Image
“decadence begins when men no longer find within themselves a reason to relate their lives to that of others and not when… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was… — Maripol Copy Share Image
The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a mighty passion for the redemption of man. — Isaac Bashevis Singer Copy Share Image
I don't see decadence really as what you do, because I don't do much at all that is decadent in my life.… — Marianne Faithfull Copy Share Image
Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately.… — Zicheng Hong Copy Share Image
I wanted to be an actor from a young age, but actually becoming one and seen the ugly side of the world… — Fran Kranz Copy Share Image
Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a depressing sex affair - is an uncompromising study of American decadence… — Manny Farber Copy Share Image
Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in… — Giambattista Vico Copy Share Image
In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to… — Cal Thomas Copy Share Image
“In my opinion, the present symptoms of decadence are explained by the fact that the development of industry and machinery has made… — Albert Einstein Copy Share Image
“None save her people knew her history, but there were wonderful stories of how she had bowed to tradition, and concentrated in… — R. Murray Gilchrist Copy Share Image
“Conventional, organized religion, in its most decadent form, is an inert parody of the genuine religious experience as much as modern occult… — Zeena Schreck Copy Share Image
There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
“It is a sort of quasi-monastic diabolical vision. In a landscape populated with larvae - flowing and undulating larvae called forth like… — Jean Lorrain Copy Share Image
Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first… — Ross Douthat Copy Share Image
When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be… — Jodi Picoult Copy Share Image
“Masks! I see them everywhere. That dreadful vision of the other night - the deserted town with its masked corpses in every… — Jean Lorrain Copy Share Image
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“There is nothing to be found in human eyes, and that is their terrifying and dolorous enigma, their abominable and delusive charm.… — Jean Lorrain Copy Share Image
“(visions) of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks… — Mary Ann Evans Copy Share Image
Ultimately we must concern ourselves with pulling out by its roots the decadence that controls our culture, the profit motive that controls… — Jane Fonda Copy Share Image
The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing… — Benito Mussolini Copy Share Image
Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect… — Francois de La Rochefoucauld Copy Share Image
In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How does one make a movie about decadence these days? Now that we're allowed to do it, it's too late. — Wilfrid Sheed Copy Share Image
America is a country in which I see the most persistant idealism and the blandest of cynicism and the race is on… — Alistair Cooke Copy Share Image
“What history gives us leaves upon us, on the contrary, the impression of decadence rather than of an advancing civilization.” — Herman Bavinck Copy Share Image
“More than GM Foods I am afraid of GMM People. Genetically and Mentally Mutated People. The Entire Ecosystem Mutates.” — Vineet Raj Kapoor Copy Share Image
He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“You will find very exquisite flowers sometime even on a dust-heap, as well as where humanity grows thickest and rankest.” — Hume Nisbet Copy Share Image
Just as the body has its progress and decadence, so also has the mind, and, therefore, the mind is not the soul,… — Swami Vivekananda Copy Share Image
Of course, the '60s was a study in decadence. Everything just got worse and worse, and at the end of the '60s,… — Claes Oldenburg Copy Share Image
“For a decadent like Baudelaire the only possible ends are suicide or the foot of the cross” — Barbey D'Aurevilly Copy Share Image
To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult. — Thomas Pynchon Copy Share Image
Decadence attracts me. It suggests a new world, and, for me, society's struggle between life and death is absolutely beautiful. — Yves Saint Laurent Copy Share Image
“I think God hands over to His apprentices the moulding of vessels that don't interest Him. ("The Accursed Cordonnier")” — Bernard Capes Copy Share Image
