When he's forsaken,
Wither'd and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
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:
Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men,
Nor men the weak anxieties of age.
And the bright faces of my young companions
Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.
That vast, beneficent Eternity
Where all things lovely pass to when they die.
When admirals extoll'd for standing still,
Of doing nothing with a deal of skill.
In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation. Hal: 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
Now Mercy says, speaking from her silence, stand in the sun. Breath the deep. Feel what can be!