Downfall/literature

Famous quotes containing the words downfall and/or literature:

“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)

“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.”
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)