Older generations are living proof that younger generations can survive their lunacy.
—Cullen Hightower (b.1923) American Humorist
Generations are as the days of toilsome mankind…. What the father has made, the son can make and enjoy but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax and roll onwards; arts, establishments, opinions; nothing is ever completed, but ever completing.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue don’t move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97) English Art Historian, Man of Letters, Politician
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Tradition is not a fetish to be prayed to-but a useful record of experiences. Time should bring improvement-but not all old things are worthless. We are served by both the moderns and the ancients. The balanced man is he who clings to the best in the old-and appropriates the desirable in the new.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
A match-stick has a head, but it does not have a brain.
—Unknown
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
Coolidge was known for his terse speech and reticence. A woman bet her friend that she could get Coolidge to speak to her, which was something he was reluctant to do. She went up to him and said: “Hello, Mr. President, I bet my friend that I could get you to say three words to me”. “You lose,” Coolidge replied dryly, and walked away.
—Unknown
I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
—John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Sixth President of the USA
Everyone expects to go further than his father went; everyone expects to be better than he was born and every generation has one big impulse in its heart—to exceed all the other generations of the past in all the things that make life worth living.
—William Allen White (1868–1944) American Editor, Politician, Author
To hope is not to demand.
—Unknown
It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Recently I labeled the argument-that 18-year-olds were old enough to vote if they were old enough to fight-a perfect example of a non sequitur. This precipitated a spirited discussion by two of my sons at the dinner table; (said) our 15-year-old, Tim: “Pop, fellow at 18 today are a lot smarter than your generation was at 18, and for sure smarter than teenagers were when voting-age requirements were first set in law”. His older brother Bob elucidated: “Maybe not smarter, but certainly better informed, more knowledgeable…. More guys in school and college have helped, but primarily the boob tube has done it”.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
To young people everything looks permanent, established-and in their eyes everything should be, needs to be changed. To older people everything seems to change, and in their view almost nothing should.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Life is hard. Next to what?
—Unknown
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
Most oldsters are fascinated by the Future, while the young love to look back to earlier days, especially their own.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
A man’s liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood—a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy souls diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Amongst democratic nations, each generation is a new people.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Adversity comes with instruction in its hand.
—Unknown
It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted. If the second and third generations could profit by the experience of the first generation, we would not be having some of the troubles we have today.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Radical, Inventor