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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:

Imagine if you could actually be that happy? That would be powerful, man. People would be tunneling under the street to avoid you. They'd go "Oh, man — is that happy guy still out there?

Jim Carrey Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act (1991)

Do not judge but love and be loved, if you want to be really happy.

Sri Chinmoy Words of Wisdom (2010)

Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.

Herman Melville Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)

The friends that have it I do wrong
Whenever I remake a song
Should know what issue is at stake,
It is myself that I remake.

William Butler Yeats

There's no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. It's all there. Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time.

J. D. Salinger

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to – if there are no doors or windows – he walks through a wall.

Bernard Malamud

Space, time, mass, and energy originate from Chaos, have their being in Chaos, and through th agency of the aether are moved by Chaos into the multiple forms of existence.

Peter J. Carroll Liber Null & Psychonaut (1987)

Dwell in the company of the Lord and forsake the company of the world because one should associate oneself with a friend and there is no friend superior to the Lord.

Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002)

No man has a surplus of power: meaning by power— time, talents, money, influence.

Fowell Buxton Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1849)

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)

He's just a contact of hers, which is not the same as a friend. While she was in the hospital she decided that most of her friends were really just contacts.

Margaret Atwood Bodily Harm (1981)

You know that if you had been in charge of creation you would have found some medium less heart-breaking than Time to stage it in.

Brian Aldiss Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Is there a place
here for the spirit? Is there time
on this brief platform for anything
other than mind's failure to explain itself?

R. S. Thomas Frequencies (1978)

The hell with it. Who never knew
the price of happiness will not be happy.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Lies (1952)

“‘Don’t forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.’ It’s from the Bible. Maybe your friend’s an angel too. I hope you were nice to him.”

Sheila Walsh Angel Song (2010)

Those who run after happiness will never be happy. Happiness is something that has to come to the fore from within.

Sri Chinmoy Seventy Seven Thousand Service-Trees series 1-50 (1998)

I will never give in to old age until I become old. And I am not old yet!

Tina Turner I, Tina (1986)

Everyone experiences ups and downs in their lives. I'm thankful enough to have good friends by my side through them all.

Hebe Tien Hebe Tien (2021)

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

George Berkeley

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