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:
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.
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.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press'd its signet sage.