Stagnant

Famous quotes containing the word stagnant:

    Religion itself becomes offensively monotonous. On every point of vantage are pagodas—stupid stalagmites of stagnant piety.
    Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)

    Houndsditch was ... a crumbling and smoke-grimed necropolis in boarded windows, mummified everywhere by old railings, stagnant air, and cobwebs, where draughty hallways reek with the smell of stale cabbage, Blakean children weep soot, and merchants patter with Mammon and make God evanescent.
    Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)

    Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. This generation inclines a little to congratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with satisfaction.... It is the good Adam contemplating his own virtue.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)