Pride will practice anything rather than let her port decline. [ Proverb ]

Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline. [ Ruskin ]

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation; the two keep pace in their downward tendency. [ Goethe ]

The beginning and the decline of love manifest themselves in the embarrassment that one feels in the tête-à-tête. [ La Bruyere ]

The very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite acclimated to its atmosphere, but how often succumbs and goes into a decline. [ Henry D. Thoreau ]

A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar; the case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor toward the latter part of life. [ Shenstone ]

Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-tail but lights out. You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer - and without prejudice - for they are not legally collectable. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]