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Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

— James Beattie The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

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More quotes by James Beattie

Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined,
Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy,
When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy.

The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined?
No; let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire,
To fancy, freedom, harmony, resigned;
Ambition's groveling crew forever left behind.

The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar?

The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

How sweet the words of truth breathed from the lips of love!

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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

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The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

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Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Beattie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.