Ruins quotes
446 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside ruins — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism."
"It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws."
"If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured."
"Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this."
"Good intentions have been the ruin of the world. The only people who have achieved anything have been those who have had no intentions at all."
"Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin."
"If we ruin the earth, there is no place else to go"
"And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin."
"Upon the highest ridge of that round hill covered with planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like the columns of a ruin."
"It is a revolution that came to power with its own army and on the ruins of the army of oppression."
"God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions."
"A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin."
"One bad review doesn't ruin my day because I realize what a badge of honor it is to get a bit of criticism at all."
"If you are out of trouble, watch for danger. And when you live well, then consider the most your life, lest ruin take it unawares."
"Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones."
"All things human hang by a slender thread; and that which seemed to stand strong suddenly falls and sinks in ruins."
"Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins"
"Extensive powers not exercised as far as was necessary have, I believe, scarcely ever failed to ruin the possessor."
"Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his [Lucifer's] ruin."
"The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time."
