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Birthday Quotes

Birthday quotes here lean towards reflection rather than celebration. The page is built from the pages on age, time, friendship and happiness, and Shakespeare has the most entries, then Byron, Edward Young and Longfellow.

That is useful if you want something thoughtful for a milestone birthday and less so for a card with balloons on it. The funny ones are on the Funny page. A warning on the friendship quotes: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is not from Sun Tzu, and “Time flies like an arrow” was not said by Groucho Marx. Both are flagged here.

Random quote on Birthday

Most quoted on birthday:

Old age is second childhood.

Aristophanes Clouds (-423)

They tell us it will be about “emotions” and “friendship,” that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?

Ai Weiwei

We want to be good, but it’s difficult to know a safe place to start. We want to reach out our hand in friendship, but we don’t want it bitten off.

Michael Elmore-Meegan All shall be well (2014)

If there is no friendship with one's neighbours, no one can progress. Look at Canada and the USA -- both countries help each other.

Sunil Dutt

From extreme old age, sanity is requested. It is like asking for strength from weakness.

Daniel Salamanca

Third we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding. At times we are able to humiliate our worst enemy.

Martin Luther King Jr. Loving Your Enemies (1957)

I can truly say with Shelley that I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Well, not on Lopen’s watch. You didn’t let your friends drown in nameless oceans during a frigid storm. That was, sure, basic friendship rules right there.

Brandon Sanderson Dawnshard (2020)

Old age brings a person troubles. Troubles make a person-make her old and gray before her time. Already little by little and thirty years old.

Fradl Shtok

We clasp the warm hand of friendship everywhere. From honest hearts and sincere lips we hear the hearty welcome and Godspeed.

Zitkala-Ša Speech (1896)

Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity...

William Blake Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (1803)

Life moves out of a red flare of dreams
Into a common light of common hours,
Until old age bring the red flare again.

William Butler Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire (1894)

The spinoffs of better understanding and goodwill from increased contact and cooperation between our peoples will surely strengthen our friendship.

Mahathir Mohamad

It started as a friendship that grew into something more.

Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland

They are also hungry to develop with the game, so it is pretty cool to be in a friendship group like that; it is quite a privilege.

Faye Tunnicliffe

Britain must now take our hand of friendship or reject it. I do not believe it will be rejected.

Hendrik Verwoerd

"I don’t have all the answers to old age. In fact, I rarely think about it".

Eve Pollard

“I don’t force friendships or communication. If it’s not mutual, I’ll let it go. It’s that simple for me.”

Maxene Magalona

The man of Hope, Barack Obama. America is stronger because of President Obama's leadership, and I'm better because of his friendship.

Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign (2015)

“The US Constitution is silent on social and economic rights: there is no Constitutional guarantee of a right to education, or to old-age pensions,”

Elizabeth Bradley

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