When we are young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we I perceive it is too late to live as we proposed.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.
—Keith Richards (b.1943) English Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Actor
I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
Age considers; youth ventures.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
On the whole, age comes more gently to those who have some doorway into an abstract world-art, or philosophy, or learning-regions where the years are scarcely noticed and the young and old can meet in a pale truthful light.
—Freya Stark (1893–1993) British Explorer, Writer
That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
The war years count double. Things and people not actively in use age twice as fast.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new—and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath everyone a friend.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
As you get older there shouldn’t be anything you won’t try. The payoff is that you open up whole new avenues that are fun. It’s a misinterpretation of life to live it only in preparation for the next one. To subordinate the one you’ve got to an indefinite next round is foolish. It’s a waste of this life not to live this life. What’s next is anybody’s guess.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young.
—Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958) American Novelist
Lord Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don’t choose to have it known.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
How can I die? I’m booked.
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
Twenty years a child; 20 years running wild; 20 years a mature man—and after that, praying.
—Irish Proverb
Every man, as to character, is the creature of the age in which he lives.—Very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their times.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Age will not be defied.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
For in all the world there are no people so piteous and forlorn as those who are forced to eat the bitter bread of dependency in their old age, and find how steep are the stairs of another man’s house. Wherever they go they know themselves unwelcome. Wherever they are, they feel themselves a burden. There is no humiliation of the spirit they are not forced to endure. Their hearts are scarred all over with the stabs from cruel and callous speeches.
—Dorothy Dix (1861–1951) American Journalist, Columnist
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
More women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Leave a Reply