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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.

Random quote on Retirement

Most quoted on retirement:

To work for a living certainly cannot be the meaning of life, since it is indeed a contradiction that the continual production of the conditions is supposed to be the answer to the question of the meaning of that which is conditional upon their production.

Søren Kierkegaard

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race:
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping Hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross.

John Milton

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.

Leonardo da Vinci The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)

You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.

John Ruskin A Joy for Ever (1857)

Schmendrick stepped out into the open and said a few words.

Peter S. Beagle The Last Unicorn (1968)

The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen" at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.

William Mountford Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Slaving gave rise to a division of labor in which the business of capture, maintenance, and overland transport of slaves was in African hands, while Europeans took charge of transoceanic transport, the "seasoning" or breaking in of slaves, and their eventual distribution.

Eric Wolf

Success for a woman means absolute surrender, in whatever direction. Whether she paints a picture, or loves a man, there is no division of labor possible in her economy. To the attainment of any end worth living for, a symmetrical sacrifice of her nature is compulsory upon her.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward The Study of Avis (1877)

The hours fly around in a circle.

Marcus Manilius

Years following years steal something ev'ry day.
At last they steal us from ourselves away.

Alexander Pope

Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which, if thou procrastinatest, thou losest, which loss is lost forever.

Jeremy Taylor

What is time? It is a serpent which eats its tail [...].

Kurt Vonnegut

While I am speaking the hour flies.

Ovid

The swift hour flies on double wings.

Seneca the Younger

Few persons know how to be old.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Old age is like an opium-dream. Nothing seems real except what is unreal.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Old friends are best. King James us'd to call for his Old Shoes, they were easiest for his Feet.

John Selden Friends (1725)

Measure not the work
Until the day's out and the labour done,
Then bring your gauges.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Aurora Leigh (1857)

LABOR, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.

Ambrose Bierce The Cynic's Word Book (1906)

If little labour, little are our gaines:
Man's fortunes are according to his paines.

Robert Herrick Hesperides (1648)

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