Societal Collapse/theories/toynbee%e2%80%99s Theory of Decay

Famous quotes containing the words societal, collapse, theories, theory and/or decay:

    [Film noir] experiences periodic rebirth and rediscovery. Whenever we have any moment of deep societal rift or disruption in America, one of the ways we can express it is through the ideas and behavior in film noir.
    John Briley (b. 1925)

    At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.
    Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)

    The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.
    —J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)

    Thus the theory of description matters most.
    It is the theory of the word for those
    For whom the word is the making of the world,
    The buzzing world and lisping firmament.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    It had been a moving, tranquil apotheosis, immersed in the transfiguring sunset glow of decline and decay and extinction. An old family, already grown too weary and too noble for life and action, had reached the end of its history, and its last utterances were sounds of music: a few violin notes, full of the sad insight which is ripeness for death.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)