Age that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
How earthy old people become—moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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
How beautiful can time with goodness make an old man look.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
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
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
It is not how old you are, but how you are old.
—Marie Dressler (1868–1934) Canadian-American Stage, Screen Actress, Comedienne
You know you’re getting old when all the names in your black book have M. D. after them.
—Arnold Palmer (1929–2016) American Professional Golfer
The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.
—English Proverb
Old age is a shipwreck.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
There is always some specific moment when we realize our youth is gone; but years after, we know it was much later.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
All diseases run into one, old age.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, and after one hour more twill be eleven. And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to hour we rot and rot. and thereby hangs a tale.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
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
In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.
—Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972) French Actor, Singer
They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body.
—Indian Proverb
Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
O Time and change!—with hair as gray as was my sire’s that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
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
The foolishness of old age does not characterize all who are old, but only the foolish.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
When you do The Work, you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are. Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the projector of all stories, and the world is the projected image of your thoughts.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
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