One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell that would tell anything.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A woman’s always younger than a man of equal years.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
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
You are only young once, but you can be immature forever.
—Unknown
O what a thing is age! Death without death’s quiet.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
—John Burroughs (1837–1921) American Naturalist, Writer
It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem—and in my esteem age is not estimable.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
I have discovered that in every language and every country I have visited, there are no new stories. They’re all recycled. The same stressful thoughts arise in each mind one way or another, sooner or later.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.
—Unknown
Morale is the state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal and loyalty. It is elan, esprit de corps and determination.
—George Marshall (1880–1959) American Military Leader
There are two things which grow stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the love of country and religion. Let them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
As another ancient sage once said, “The pathway is smooth. Why do you throw rocks before you?”
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
If you wouldn’t live long, live well; for folly and wickedness shorten life.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
One’s mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.
—Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Dramatist
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
One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
If age and experience came at birth, We would have neither youth nor mirth.
—Russian Proverb
I’m like old wine. They don’t bring me out very often, but I’m well preserved.
—Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American Philanthropist, Socialite