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. (David Herbert) Lawrence
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
It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true. – Gertrude Stein
Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. – John Stuart Mill
