Retirement Quotes
Retirement does not have a Wikiquote page, so this one borrows from three that do: work, time and age. The result suits a card or a send-off speech better than a close reading. There are lines about labour well done, about the years running on, and about being old that are rueful more often than sentimental.
As elsewhere on the site, each quote links to its own page with the source and the editors’ notes. If you want to put a name under a line in a card, check for a flag first.
Most quoted on retirement:
Man yields to death; and man's sublimest works
Must yield at length to Time.
He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
Age imprints more wrinkles on the mind than it does on the face.
A green old age, unconscious of decays,
That proves the hero born in better days.
Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and gray.
At your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment.
You are old;
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
Free men freely work:
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.