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Yet somehow our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.

— Pearl S. Buck My Several Worlds (1954)

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More quotes by Pearl S. Buck

Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and so they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.

An Apple for the Teacher: Fundamentals for Instructional Computing (1983)

Every event has had its cause, and nothing, not the least wind that blows, is accident or causeless.

My Several Worlds (1954)

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

What America Means to Me (1943)

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

What America Means to Me (1943)

All Pearl S. Buck quotes →

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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?"

Sanu Sharma

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

Núria Añó

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: Pearl S. Buck (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.