Clarice Lispector Quotes

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However... the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen... and you will hear the creaking.

Winning had become kind of automatic, but I realized in 2008 that at any moment that could be taken away from me.

I believe that time destroys everything. You can take one beautiful apple, red. After a while, it becomes shrivelled and full of worms, just like what happens to us.

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.

Nothing prospers to the end.

Empires always have the hubris to think they are indestructible, when in fact they are always unsustainable.

Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.

Mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust.

The top of a pinnacle now, firewood soon

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.

The nation which is satisfied is lost. The nation which is not progressive is retrograding.

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

All you got to do is look around. This country's getting worse and worse and more and more immoral, and we're rotting from within.

I am at the top of the pyramid, but I am not stupid, and I realise that one small step could see me fall down very quickly.

I was unbeatable - until I wasn't.

It was becoming clear to me that I shouldn't bother to get too attached to anything. Turn your back and you lose it. Just like that.

Germany had the misfortune of becoming poisoned, first because of plenty, and then because of want.

Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.

civilization is a transient sickness.

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

Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square,From the first point of his appointed sourse,And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse.

Unfortunately, when you're the king of the hill, there's really only one way to go, and that's down.

Wrecked on the lee shore of age.