Glorious Ruin Quotes & Sayings

Resting on what's considered great has always been a recipe for decline. I remember touring Rome with a guide who pointed out one marvelous achievement after another of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Augustus was said to have inherited a city of brick and left a city of marble, with twelve entrances on twelve hills. He built nearly a thousand glorious new structures - bridges, buildings, monuments, and aqueducts. As we marveled at the remnants of Augustus's grand designs, our guide exclaimed with pride that this era marked the pinnacle of Rome's greatness.
What came next?' I asked.
After an awkward silence, the guide said, 'Slow ruin. — Robert K. Cooper

I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union. — Sam Houston

Ronan wasn't exactly sure why he was angry. Although Gansey had done nothing to invoke his ire, he was definitely part of the problem. Currently, he propped his cell between ear and shoulder as he eyed a pair of plastic plates printed with smiling tomatoes. His unbuttoned collar revealed a good bit of his collarbone. No one could deny that Gansey was a glorious portrait of youth, the well-tended product of a fortunate and moneyed pairing. Ordinarily, he was so polished that it was bearable, though, because he was clearly not the same species as Ronan's rough-and-ready family. But tonight, under the fluorescent lights of Dollar City, Gansey's hair was scuffed and his cargo shorts were a greasy ruin from mucking over the Pig. He was barelegged and sockless in his Top-Siders and very clearly a real human, an attainable human, and this, somehow, made Ronan want to smash his fist through a wall. — Maggie Stiefvater

Dust that never asks in vain
Hath reclaim'd its own again.
Dust, the wide world's king.
Where are now the glorious hours
Of a nation's gather'd powers?
Like the setting of a star,
In the fathomless afar;
Time's eternal wing
Hath around those ruins cast
The dark presense of the past. — Letitia E. Landon

Mind, what art thou? Dost thou not
Hold the vast earth for thy lot?
In thy toil, how glorious.
What dost thou achieve for us,
Over all victorious!
Godlike thou dost seem.
But they perishing still lurks
In thy most immortal works;
Thou dost build thy home on sand,
And the palace-girdled stream
Fadeth like a dream.
Thy great victories only show
All is nothingness below. — Letitia E. Landon

What a glorious creature must he have been in the day of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin. — Mary Shelley