Friday 5 August 2011

Age - Qutoes

A graceful and blessed old age must have three elements in it: a happy retrospect, a peaceful present, and an inspiring future. And old age cannot have either one of these three if the youth has been wasted and manhood has been misspent. - Lyman Abbott

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. - Gloria Pitzer

Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. - Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity. - Tom Stoppard 

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you dont mind, it doesnt matter. - Mark Twain

Age is only experience, and some of us are more experienced than others. - Mickey Rooney

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are. - Muhammad Ali  

Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere. - Christian Nestell

As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure, if you know how to use it. The gradually (I do not say rapidly) declining years are amongst the sweetest in a mans life; and, I maintain, that even where they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still. - Seneca

As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls across our path; the realities of life seem less crude than of yore, they touch our senses less intimately, and they lose much of their poignancy. - Stefan Zweig

As we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open. - Clint Eastwood

As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind. - Irvin D. Yalom

Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day. - Dylan Thomas

Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born. - Albert Einstein 

Dont complain about growing old – many, many people do not have that privilege. - Earl Warren

Everyone is the age of their heart. - Guatemalan Proverb

Few know how to be old. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form. - Andre Maurois

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to he who is of opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden. - Plato

I think aging has nothing to recommend it. You don't gain any wisdom as the years go by. You fall apart, is what happens. People try and put a nice varnish on it, and say, well, you mellow. You come to understand life and accept things. But you'd trade all of that for being 35 again. - Woody Allen

I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I'm not sure. Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I remember that I'm one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke. - Sara Gruen

If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early. - Lyman Abbott

It is important to remember that aging and growing old are not necessarily the same. - Unknown

It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree. - George Eliot

It must be confessed that life after forty is an anti-climax, gradual indeed, and progressive with some, but steep and rapid with others. It would be well if old age diminished our perceptibilities to pain, in the same proportion that it does our sensibilities to pleasure; and if life has been termed a feast, those favoured few are the most fortunate guests, who are not compelled to sit at the table, when they can no longer partake of the banquet. - Charles Caleb Colton

Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when. - Philip Roth 

Just remember, when you're over the hill, you begin to pick up speed. - Charles M. Schulz

Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years. - Ausonius

Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff. - Erma Bombeck

My body is older now, and not as good as it used to be, but my spirit is young and free. Age is nothing but a number as long as I never let go of the child living inside of me. - Unknown

Middle age is when work is a lot less fun and fun is a lot more work. - Unknown

Mostly getting old is boring. I hate the stiffness in the bones. I was physically arrogant for years. I don't like it now that I have difficulty getting around. But a certain equanimity sets in, a certain detachment. Things seem less desperately important than they once did, and that's a pleasure. - Doris Lessing 

Of middle age, the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles. - Don Marquis

Nothing is more incumbent on the old, than to know when they should get out of the way, and relinquish to younger successors the honours they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform. - Thomas Jefferson

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young. - Karl Lagerfeld

Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by thoughts of death. - Andre Maurois

Old age ain't no place for sissies. - Bette Davis

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth. - William Somerset Maugham

Old age is just one of the life stages that societies create, and the number and timing of these stages vary. - Toni M. Calasanti

Old age is like climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you get. But your view becomes much more extensive. - Unknown

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young. - Fred Astaire

Old age is the harbor of all ills. - Bion

Old age makes you a stranger in your own country. - Ken Alstad

Old age ought to be, and essentially is a manifestation of what is hidden in the depths of man's nature. It might be, it should be, not an exhibition of crackling impotence and gloomy decay, but the very crown and ripening of life – the symbol of maturity, not of dissolution. - E. H. Chapin

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited and gives us what we have earned. - Gerald Brenan

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator. - Confucius

One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. - James Joyce

One of the greatest advantages of our later years is that we no longer have to scream; we can talk. We do not have to run; we can walk. We have the time to examine the quality of life and to work for ourselves on its improvement. We can do more of what we like, rather than what we were told we would like. - Unknown

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young. - William Feather

One of the things you realize about getting older is that not everybody is going to get older with you. - Cormac McCarthy

Preparation for old age should begin not later than one’s teens. A life which is empty of purpose until sixty-five will not suddenly become filled on retirement. - Unknown

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun. - Thomas Arnold 

Sixty feels exactly like 50, with aching feet and more forgetfulness.... But your inside person doesn't age. Your inside person is soul, is heart, in the eternal now, the ageless, the old, the young, all the ages you've ever been. - Anne Lamott

The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not as a stumbling-block. - Andre Maurois

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth. - W. Somerset Maugham

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat. - Luc de Clapiers

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. - Madeleine L'Engle

The great renunciation of old age as it prepared for death, wraps itself up in its chrysalis, which may be observed at the end of lives that are at all prolonged, even in old lovers who have lived for one another, in old friends bound by the closest ties of mutual sympathy, who, after a certain year, cease to make the necessary journey or even to cross the street to see one another, cease to correspond, and know that they will communicate no more in this world. - Marcel Proust

The greatest tragedy of old age is the tendency for the old to feel unneeded, unwanted, and of no use to anyone; the secret of happiness in the declining years is to remain interested in life, as active as possible, useful to others, busy, and forward looking. - Eleanor Roosevelt

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

The old are apt to mistake age for experience, and to imagine they are privileged to give good advice, though they may have lived only to afford bad example. - Norman MacDonald

The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. - H. L. Mencken

The only real change in life comes with the consciousness of old age. - Austin O’Malley

The real affliction of old age is remorse. - Cesare Pavese

The secret of a good old age is simply an honourable pact with solitude. - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The solitude in which we are left by the death of our friends is one of the great evils of protracted life. When I look back to the days of my youth, it is like looking over a field of battle. All, all dead! and ourselves left alone midst a new generation whom we know not, and who know not us. - Thomas Jefferson

The tragedy of old age ... is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth; that its love and prosy sageness, so important a few years ago, so gladly offered now, are rejected with laughter. - Sinclair Lewis

There is no place in which to hide when Age comes seeking for his bride. - Joyce Kilmer

There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning. - Simone de Beauvoir

There may be a retirement age at work, but there is no retirement age in life. - Unknown 

There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything. - Fran Lebowitz

To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion. - Albert Camus 

To grow old means to be rid of anxieties about the past. - Stefan Zweig

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age. - Amos Bronson Alcott

We have confidence in an old man when holding a position, but lack confidence in him when he is applying for one. - Lewis F. Korns

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, and be alone on earth. - Lord Bryon

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories. - William Somerset Maugham

When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again. - John le Carre

With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come. - William Shakespeare

Years are only garments, and you either wear them with style all your life, or else you go dowdy to the grave. - Dorothy Parker

You know you’re the perfect age when you’re old enough to know better, young enough not to care, and experienced enough to do it right. - Unknown

2 comments:

Carla M.T. said...

"Don't complain about growing old — many, many people do not have that privilege ." Earl Warren - Statement on celebrating his 83rd birthday (March 1974)
I posted it on Facebook :-)

Love your posts Vincent!! Enlightening!

Vincent said...

Hi Carla,

Thank you for your research. I have updated the quote. :-)

Glad to hear you are enjoying the quotes and sharing them as well.

There are much knowledge and wisdom in the Quotes.

Cheers,
Vincent