Paul Harris Quotes

The nation that is supreme above all others during one age, will be eclipsed by another in the next age.

Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.

Look to the past and remember no empire rises that sooner or later won't fall.

Every empire eventually falls.

History is not reassuring on the subject of the longevity of seemingly lasting great nations, is it?

Look at the history of empires. They come and they go. They ebb and they flow.

From nothing to everything is a long way, from everything to nothing is one stop.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.

A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.

In the last five or six thousand years, empires one after another have arisen, waxed powerful by wars of conquest, and fallen by internal revolution or attack from without.

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

Things of this World are in so constant a Flux, that nothing remains long in the same State. Thus People, Riches, Trade, Power, change their Stations; flourishing mighty Cities come to ruine, and prove in time neglected desolate Corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow into populous Countries, fill'd with Wealth and Inhabitants.

History is a fickle lady.

The best instituted governments carry in them the seeds of their own destruction; and though they grow and improve for a time, they will soon tend visibly to their dissolution. Every hour that they live is an hour less that they have to live.

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

One of the things that I'm fascinated about generally is the rise and fall of everything, from civilizations to families to companies.

Every phenom goes down one day.

Nothing can stay great forever, and nothing can stay horrible forever.

All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced.

History is a great cemetery: men, deeds, ideas are always dying as soon as they are born.

What a lesson, indeed, is all history and all life to the folly and fruitlessness of pride! The Egyptian kings had their embalmed bodies preserved in massive pyramids, to obtain an earthly immortality. In the seventeenth century they were sold as quack medicines, and now they are burnt for fuel! The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise.

In the old legend the wise men finally boiled down the history of mortal affairs into a single phrase: 'This too will pass.'