Deterioration Quotes - page 2
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
Albert Einstein
Decadence, instability, disintegration, corruption, reversal of attitude, all that arises through the simple fact of one's going on existing without self-criticism, self-renewal, constant self-adaptation, without letting anything in one die, through the simple fact of gradually settling down in the vantage point one occupies, the good conscience one enjoys. Such is the permanent danger of all spiritual life. It is an inevitable deterioration which can only be overcome-and painfully at that-by a watchful mustering of strength-unless it be effortlessly vanquished by a wonderful gift of grace....Whence the necessity of paradox: or rather the perpetual flavor of paradox that truth has, when it is freshly expressed, for the man who clings to a truth when it is in the process of turning into a lie.
Henri de Lubac