103 Quotes About Decay


  • Author Ernst Fischer
  • Quote

    In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

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  • Author Donna Tartt
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    They really knew how to work this edge, the Dutch painters―ripeness sliding into rot. The fruit’s perfect but it won’t last, it’s about to go. And see here especially,” she said, reaching over my shoulder to trace the air with her finger, “this passage―the butterfly.” The underwing was so powdery an delicate it looked as if the color would smear if she touched it. “How beautiful he plays it. Stillness with a tremble of movement.

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  • Author Donna Tartt
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    Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life―a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple―the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last―it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer―there it is.

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  • Author Nupur Walia
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    Nothing stays forever, nobody does rather. All the things, people will leave you one fine day and you’ll be a wanderer in solitude again. You’ll moan again silently through the process of decaying. All your richness or poornesswas never really of worth. When you were born, you were dead, respiring to cease. You’re a trader, exchanging everything!

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