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.
Most quoted on birthday:
Thus times do shift; each thing his turne does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.
The noiseless foot of Tune steals swiftly by
And ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh.
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.
Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.