Full Idea
Values do not accumulate: a generation contributes something new only by trampling on what was unique in the preceding generation.
Gist of Idea
Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced
Source
E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 6 'We')
Book Reference
Cioran,E.M.: 'A Short History of Decay', ed/tr. Howard,Richard [Penguin 2010], p.183
A Reaction
That may seem true for a Frenchman or a Romanian, but it doesn't feel true of British culture, which seems to me to have accumulated values over the last five hundred years. Before 1500 it seems to me to be a foreign country. We may be near the end!