Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
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
Why is it that, as we grow older, we are so reluctant to change? It is not so much that new ideas are painful, for they are not. It is that old ideas are seldom entirely false, but have truth, great truth in them. The justification for conservatism is the desire to preserve the truths and standards of the past; its dangers, of which we are seldom aware, is that in preserving those values, we may miss the infinitely greater riches that lie in the future.
—Dale Turner (1917–2006) American Priest, Columnist, Epigrammist
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (234–149 BCE) Roman Statesman
The essence of any plan for financing old age is saving-to put aside some part of today’s earnings for the future. Anything that saps the value of savings-and inflation is the worst single threat-is the enemy of the aged and of those who expect to grow old.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
The war years count double. Things and people not actively in use age twice as fast.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.
—Muriel Spark (1918–2006) Scottish Novelist, Short-story Writer, Poet
When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.
—Sam Ewing (b.1949) American Sportsperson
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
Life is eating us up. We shall be fables presently. Keep cool: It will all be one a hundred years hence.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop the plane, you can’t stop the storm, you can’t stop time. So one might as well accept it calmly, wisely.
—Golda Meir (1898–1978) Israeli Head of State
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
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
I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Here, with whitened hair, desires failing, strength ebbing out of him, with the sun gone down and with only the serenity and the calm warning of the evening star left to him, he drank to Life, to all it had been, to what it was, to what it would be. Hurrah!
—Sean O’Casey (1880–1964) Irish Dramatist, Memoirist
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
While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.
—Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American Actor, Dancer, Singer
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
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
Getting old is not for sissies.
—Dero A. Saunders (1914–2002) American Journalist, Scholar
Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832–98) British Anglican Author, Mathematician, Clergyman, Photographer, Logician
Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
—William Golding (1911–93) English Novelist
There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
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
You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
I think that, for all of us, as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open.
—Clint Eastwood (b.1930) American Film Director, Film Producer, Film Actor
Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.
—Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972) French Actor, Singer
We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
—Unknown
They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.
—Henry Vaughan (1621–95) Anglo-Welsh Metaphysical Poet
At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
—Anthony Powell (1905–2000) English Novelist, Memoirist
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
Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
—Tom Wilson (1931–2011) American Cartoonist
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
When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) French Woman of Letters
He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
With maturity comes the wish to economize—to be more simple. Maturity is the period when one finds the just measure.
—Bela Bartok (1881–1945) Hungarian Composer, Ethnomusicologist
When I grow up, I want to be a little boy.
—Joseph Heller (1923–99) American Novelist
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
Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
An aged Christian, with the snow of time upon his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest to heaven.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
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
What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is for the most part incommunicable.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.
—John Nuveen
You know you’re getting old when all the names in your black book have M. D. after them.
—Arnold Palmer (b.1929) American Sportsperson
With care, and skill, and cunning art, She parried Time’s malicious dart, And kept the years at bay, Till passion entered in her heart and aged her in a day!
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
Few people know how to be old.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist
Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.
—Helen Hayes (1900–93) American Actor, Philanthropist
A woman’s always younger than a man of equal years.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
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
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
A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957) English Novelist, Artist
Old age is a shipwreck.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
The greatest comfort of my old age, and that which gives me the highest satisfaction, is the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices I have done to others.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (234–149 BCE) Roman Statesman
At twenty a man is full of fight and hope. He wants to reform the world. When he is seventy he still wants to reform the world, but he know he can’t.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
—Larry McMurtry (b.1936) American Novelist, Screenwriter
One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
What’s a man’s age? He must hurry more, that’s all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
A man is as old as he feels and a woman as old as she looks.
—Common Proverb
Old age is an insult. It’s like being smacked.
—Lawrence Durrell (1912–90) British Biographer, Poet, Playwright, Novelist
To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
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
You’ll find as you grow older that you weren’t born such a very great while ago after all. The time shortens up.
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920) American Novelist, Critic.
To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.
—George William Curtis (1824–92) American Essayist, Public Speaker, Editor, Author
If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
How confusing the beams from memory’s lamp are;
One day a bachelor, the next a grampa.
What is the secret of the trick?
How did I get so old so quick?
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
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
I hope I never get so old I get religious.
—Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish Film and Stage Director
Someday you will read in the papers that Moody is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I was born of the flesh in 1837, I was born of the spirit in 1855. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit shall live forever.
—Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) Christian Religious Leader, Publisher
When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his forties shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
—Hugo Black (1886–1971) American Politician, Jurist
Whenever a man’s friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
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
The older you get the stronger the wind gets — and it’s always in your face.
—Jack Nicklaus (b.1940) American Sportsperson
One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
I don’t generally feel anything until noon, then it’s time for my nap.
—Bob Hope (1903–2003) British-born American Comedian
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
A friend of Oliver Wendell Holmes asked him why he had take up the study of Greek at the age of ninety-four. Holmes replied, “Well, my good sir, it’s now or never.”
—Max Lucado (b.1955) American Christian Author, Minister
The trouble with our age is that it is all signpost and no destination.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
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
Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
—Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American Cartoonist, Writer, Artist