OLD AGE QUOTES VI
quotations about old age
The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women
Nobody tells you that old age is going to be s****y. It's a kind of conspiracy.
MIRIAM MARGOLYES
The Guardian, January 28, 2017
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
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Young he was not, so that one had to call him old, but the word did not suit him.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Farthest Shore
You know you're getting older when you notice that more and more history questions happened in your lifetime!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, July 3, 1999
You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: "Holy Christ, whaddya know -- I'm still around!"
PAUL NEWMAN
The Independent, June 17, 2006
The smile upon the old man's lips, like the last rays of the setting sun, pierces the heart with a sweet and sad emotion. There is still a ray, there is still a smile; but they may be the last.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
The habits of a young man are, like his coat, removable; the habits of an old man are like the drapery of a statue.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Book of Common Sense Etiquette
The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Science as culture misdirects the way in which old age is understood. Rather than valuing life in all its diversity, including its final phase, it leads to misguided devotion of resources to solving the problem of death. The focus on biological failure sets up a cultural construction of old age which leads to the low esteem in which it is currently held.
JOHN A. VINCENT
"Marketing Immortality", JSTOR Daily, February 2, 2017
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.
GOLDA MEIR
attributed, The Ultimate Book of Quotations
Oh dear, this living and eating and growing old; these doubts and aches in the back, and want of interest in the Moon and Roses... Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang "Auld Lang Syne" and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the summer stars through a blur of great, romantic tears?
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.
PHILIP ROTH
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete.
TANITH LEE
interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show
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
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Age overtakes us all;
Our temples first; then on o'er cheek and chin,
Slowly and surely, creep the frosts of Time.
Up and do somewhat, ere thy limbs are sere.
THEOCRITUS
"The Love of Thyonichus"
Youth is the season of receptivity, and should be devoted to acquirement; and manhood of power--that demands an earnest application. Old age is for revision.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought