Turning 50 gives me more yesterdays than tomorrows.
—Bill Clinton (b.1946) American Head of State, Lawyer, Public Speaker
Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always asked to do things, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Middle age: The time when you’ll do anything to feel better, except give up what is hurting you.
—Robert Quillen (1887–1948) American Journalist, Humorist
Women only keep quiet about their age.
—German Proverb
Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
How do you live a long life? “Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.”
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
—Satchel Paige (1906–82) American Baseball Player
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
The evening of a well spent life brings its lamps with it.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
Nothing is more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to show to prove that he has lived long, except his years.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Now everything changed. My childhood world was breaking apart around me. My parents eyed me with a certain embarrassment. My sisters had become strangers to me. A disenchantment falsified and blunted my usual feelings and joys: the garden lacked fragrance, the woods held no attraction for me, the world stood around me like a clearance sale of last year’s secondhand goods, insipid, all its charm gone. Books were so much paper, music a grating noise. That is the way leaves fall around a tree in autumn, a tree unaware of the rain running down its sides, of the sun or the frost, and of life gradually retreating inward. The tree does not die. It waits.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The surest sign of age is loneliness.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, 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
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
At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside—from others. We do not accept it willingly.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
Thy decay’s still impregnate with divinity.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
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
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
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
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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
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
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
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
But it’s hard to be hip over thirty when everyone else is nineteen, when the last dance we learned was the Lindy, and the last we heard, girls who looked like Barbara Streisand were trying to do something about it.
—Judith Viorst (b.1931) American Psychoanalyst, Journalist, Writer
Old age is a tyrant, which forbids the pleasures of youth on pain of death.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
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
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
I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that does make my sons illegitimate.
—Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (1879–1964) American-born British Politician
Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
—Tom Wilson (1931–2011) American Cartoonist
Women are not forgiven for aging. Bob Redford’s lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.
—Jane Fonda (b.1937) American Actress, Political Activist
That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now. I see no reason why our dear Cecily should not be even still more attractive at the age you mention than she is at present. There will be a large accumulation of property.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; and did not, with unbashful forehead, woo the means of weakness and debility: therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
Every age has its book.
—Arabic Proverb
I hope I never get so old I get religious.
—Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish Film and Stage Director
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, “Why not?” and the other, “Why bother?”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Old wine and friends improve with age.
—Italian Proverb
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
What gets measured gets managed.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant