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Decay: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!— BURKE — Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. III.

P. 331. A gilded halo hovering round decay.— BYRON — Giaour. L. 100.

C. You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave- Think ye he meant them for a slave?— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto III. Canto III. St. 86. 10.

He that loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires ;- As old Time makes these decay, So his flames must waste away.— THOMAS CAREW — Disdain Returned.

A worm is in the bud of youth, And at the root of age.— COWPER — Stanzas Subjoined to a Bill of

Mortality. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade- A breath can make them, as a breath has made- But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd can never be supplied.— GOLDSMITH — Deserted Village. L. 51.

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?— IRVING — The Sketch Book. Westminster

Abbey. An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.— SAM'L JOHNSON — Vanity of Human Wishes. L. 293.