Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.
—Marie Dressler (1868–1934) American-Canadian Actress
Age, like distance lends a double charm.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts and we grow happier as we grow older.
—William Lyon Phelps (1865–1943) American Author, Critic, Scholar
Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
—Anthony Powell (1905–2000) English Novelist, Memoirist
Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can’t quite name.
—Philip Larkin (1922–85) English Poet, Librarian, Novelist
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are left for execution, and are daily expecting the death-warrant; but it is not anything very capital we quit. We are, at the close of life, only hurried away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, from sleepless nights and unamusing days, from weakness, ugliness, and nervous tremors; but we shall all meet again in another planet, cured of all our defects.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.
—Bob Hope (1903–2003) British-born American Comedian
Years ago we discovered the exact point the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.
—Franklin P. Adams (1881–1960) American Columnist, Radio Personality, Author
If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree if independence still available under present circumstances.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are.
—Satchel Paige (1906–82) American Baseball Player
A lady of a “certain age,” which means certainly aged.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
you played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:
walk sober off; before a sprightlier age comes tittering on,
and shoves you from the stage:
leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Live your life and forget your age.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
It’s sad for a girl to reach the age where men consider her charmless, But it’s worse for a man to attain the age where the girls consider him harmless.
—Anonymous
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Age is opportunity no less,
than youth itself, though in another dress.
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled by the stars invisible by the day.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at mid-day.
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English Educationalist
The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you’ll grow out of it.
—Doris Day (1924–2019) American Actor, Singer, Animal Rights Activist
Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we paid for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth. Little avails that coinage to the old!
—George Meredith (1828–1909) British Novelist, Poet, Critic
Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.
—Arthur Wing Pinero (1855–1934) English Playwright, Actor
He that is not handsome at 20, nor strong at 30, nor rich at 40, nor wise at 50, will never be handsome, strong, rich or wise.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.
—Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972) French Actor, Singer
As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.
—Anthony Trollope (1815–82) English Novelist
We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author