Downfall Quotes

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain.

We may go down, but we will take a world with us.

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best.

From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages - not to mention the myth of Icarus - predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure.

The higher up, the harder the fall.

I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. ... Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

Complacency is almost always the product of success or perceived success

Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

I am the last President of the United States.

Hope has often caused the love of gain to ruin men.

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

You can't get too high for somebody to bring you down.

We suffer more … when we fall from a better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal object of prudence.

The envy of excellence leads to perdition; the love of it leads to the light.

Despair ruins some, presumption many.

People with success are less able to cope because you're used to being on Mount Everest and when it's gone, what do you do?

A 'mixed economy' is a society in the process of committing suicide.

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.

Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business.

People love to see people fall.

The majority of comic book villains are pure evil, but Curt Connors is an exception. Curt Connors is a good man who initially wants to save the world, but he gets hungry and greedy and reckless, and he pays the price for that.