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Age Quotes

Age is another Shakespeare topic, followed by Byron, Longfellow, Seneca and La Rochefoucauld. The best-sourced lines range from sour to funny. Disraeli, in Vivian Grey (1826), hopes the heritage of old age is not despair. Emerson, in Society and Solitude (1870), says we do not count a man’s years until he has nothing else to count. George Carlin, in It’s Bad for Ya (2008), points out that one great thing about getting old is that you can get out of social obligations just by saying you’re tired.

Three entries are flagged: a passage on the feeling of no longer being a boy, credited to Anatole France, and one on providing for old age so that it may meditate, credited to Pearl S. Buck, are marked misattributed, and Dryden’s lines on old age creeping on with silent pace are disputed.

Random quote on Age

Most quoted on age:

The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart (1958)

Whatever is in store for me, I shall watch the daily modulations with an impersonal fascination not unmixed with awe at Mother Nature's gift for Caricature, and will take the bitter with the sweet and keep a stiff upper lip.

Robert Benchley

Gross well says that children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth.

G. Stanley Hall

The monumental pomp of age
Was with this goodly personage;
A stature undepressed in size,
Unbent, which rather seemed to rise
In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years, to loftier height.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

I've changed my attitudes about what it means to age. Sometimes people decide it's their lot in life to be old, but people like Grandma bring color and excellence to their lives. That's what I've tried to do, too. I'm looking forward to the next stage.

Cloris Leachman

Old age is courteous—no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, "Walk in, sir, pray!"
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed,
And then they cry, "A cool one, indeed."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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;
Nor 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

When an old gentleman waggles his head and says: "Ah, so I thought when I was your age," it is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: "My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours." And yet the one is as good as the other.

Robert Louis Stevenson

This increase in the life span and in the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacity — and the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned. It is not enough for a great nation merely to have added new years to life — our objective must also be to add new life to those years.

John F. Kennedy

But now at thirty years my hair is gray––
(I wonder what it will be like at forty?
I thought of a peruke the other day)
My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
Have squander'd my whole summer while 'twas May,
And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
Have spent my life, both interest and principal,
And deem not, what I deem'd my soul invincible.

Lord Byron Don Juan (1818)

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

W. Somerset Maugham The Summing Up (1938)

So Life's year begins and closes;
Days, though short'ning, still can shine;
What though youth gave love and roses,
Age still leaves us friends and wine.

Thomas Moore

I'm growing fonder of my staff;
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes;
I'm growing fainter in my laugh;
I'm growing deeper in my sighs;
I'm growing careless of my dress;
I'm growing frugal of my gold;
I'm growing wise; I'm growing — yes, —
I'm growing old!

John Godfrey Saxe

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

Cicero

I am old now, or at least, I am no longer young, and everything I see reminds me of something else I’ve seen, such that I see nothing for the first time. A bonny girl, her hair fiery red, reminds me only of another hundred such lasses, and their mothers, and what they were as they grew, and what they looked like when they died. It is the curse of age, that all things are reflections of other things.

Neil Gaiman Trigger Warning (2015)

It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.

Nicholas Sparks The Notebook (1996)

My way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

William Shakespeare Macbeth (1605)

You can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of having a relationship change.

Glen Cook The White Rose (1985)

But old age was approaching with cruel, hushed steps and sometimes in crafty disguises.

Joseph Roth The Radetzky March (1932)

He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled.

Gene Fowler without citation in Judy Valon (2009)

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