Old Age Quotation

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.OSCAR WILDE,
The Picture of Dorian Gray

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 Summing Up

No man loves life like him that's growing old.SOPHOCLES, Acrisius [fragment]

The old are in a second childhood.ARISTOPHANES, The Clouds

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made. ROBERT BROWNING, Rabbi ben Ezra

When we're young we have faith in what is seen, but when we're old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.MAXWELL ANDERSON, Winterset

Old men’s prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.EURIPIDES, Alcestis

There's one advantage to being 102. There's no peer pressure.DENNIS WOLFBERG, Humorous Quotes for All Occasions

All my life I've been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.BILLY GRAHAM, Newsweek, Aug. 14, 2006

I do not wish to grow old, to outlive my illusions. Only a short respite from cares and sorrow, a brief time of flowers, and music, and love, and laughter, and ecstatic tears.ANNE REEVE ALDRICH, "An Evening With Callender"

I truly believe that age -- if you're healthy -- age is just a number.HUGH HEFNER, interview, Apr. 8, 2006

I'm eighty-three and homeless. It was the same when World War II ended. The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was "Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?" That what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now? I've wondered where home is. It's when I was in Indianapolis when I was nine years old. Had a dog, a cat, a brother, a sister.KURT VONNEGUT, JR., Rolling Stone, Aug. 24, 2006

Once a happy old man One can never change the core of things, and light burns you the harder for it. JOHN ASHBERY, "A Last World"

There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age: youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.O. HENRY, "The Count and the Wedding Guest"

The Disappointment of Manhood succeeds to the delusion of Youth: let us hope that the heritage of Old Age is not Despair.BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Vivian Grey

Amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young woman from real inclination has preferred an old man.GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Sep. 30, 1779

The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.H.L. MENCKEN, Prejudices: Third Series

It is because the old have forgotten life that they preach wisdom.PHILIP MOELLER, Helena's Husband

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.LEON TROTSKY, Diary in Exile

There is no place in which to hide When Age comes seeking for his bride. JOYCE KILMER, "Age Comes A-Wooing"

They only name things after you when you're dead or really old.GEORGE H.W. BUSH, speech, Apr. 26, 1999

I've finally reached the age where my Wild Oats have turned into All-Bran!TOM WILSON, Ziggy, Nov. 19, 1999

When you get old, you can't talk to people because people snap at you.... That's why you become deaf, so you won't be able to hear people talking to you that way.EDWARD ALBEE, The American Dream

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, as I am now. LORD BYRON, Childe Harold

If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.MICKEY MANTLE

As we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping out minds active and open.CLINT EASTWOOD

It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.NICHOLAS SPARKS, The Notebook

What you lose as you age is witnesses, the ones that watched from early on and cared, like your own little grandstand.JOHN UPDIKE, Rabbit is Rich

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, Adam Bede

When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how hold you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm--you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.SARA GRUEN, Water for Elephants

Getting older was definitely preferable to an up close and personal meeting with the Grim Reaper.JOANN ROSS, No Safe Place

And now the end is near And so I face the final curtain, I’ll state my case of which I’m certain. I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and ev’ry highway, And more, much more than this. I did it my way. FRANK SINATRA, My Way (lyrics by Paul Anka)

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"

The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.GEORGE ELIOT, Romola

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, "Morituri Salutamus"

OLD AGE QUOTES II

Old age is gentle as an autumn morn; The harvest over, you will put the plough Into another, stronger hand, and watch The sowing you were wont to do. CARMEN SYLVA, "A Friend"

You read the past in some old faces.WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, The Virginians

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.J. K. ROWLING, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

When life's summer grows to winter And its roses fade and fall; When in vain we try to hinder Death's commissioned right to all; When on white lips there's a last kiss And we see her face no more, Then it is to know what love is, Waiting on a foreign shore. EDWIN LEIBFREED, "'Tis Then We Know"

Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.J. K. ROWLING, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Women are beautiful when they're young, and not after. Men can still preserve their sex appeal well into old age.... Some men can maintain, if they embrace it ... cragginess, weary masculinity. Women just get old and fat and wrinkly.TRACY LETTS, August: Osage Country

Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babies; they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede

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

I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. T. S. ELIOT, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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

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, Living Words

The only real change in life comes with the consciousness of old age.AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

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, Thoughts

Until thirty we live through curiosity, after that out of sheer spite and bravado.ABRAHAM MILLER, Unmoral Maxims

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, Lacon

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.T. S. ELIOT, Time Magazine, Oct. 23, 1950

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, Maxims and Moral Reflections

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims

You know you're getting older when you notice that more and more history questions happened in your lifetime!TOM WILSON, Ziggy, Jul. 3, 1999

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

Before forty we live forwards; after forty we live backwards.CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM, The Maxims of Marmaduke

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, Water for Elephants

Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy?WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, The Virginians

A man in old age is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed.HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life Thoughts

This is old age! A slow and sure decay! A tott'ring edifice, crusted with mould, Failing in strength and beauty ev'rywhere! Its vaults, and noble arches, choked with weeds! Its casements dark, and chambers thick with dust Its pillars bowed, or prostrate on the ground! C. B. LANGSTON, "Old Age"

OLD AGE QUOTES III

Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.PHYLLIS DILLER, attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women

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, letter to Francis Adrian Van Der Kemp, Jan. 11, 1825

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick

In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Table-Talk

Pain for the old was no longer a surprise.CORMAC MCCARTHY, All the Pretty Horses

Nothing is more incumbent on the old, than to know when they should get out of the way, and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Vaughan, Feb. 5, 1815

In youth all doors open outward; in old age all open inward.HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Table-Talk

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

You know you're getting old when your back starts going out more than you do.PHYLLIS DILLER, Housekeeping Hints

Man, like the fruit he eats, has his period of ripeness. Like that, too, if he continues longer hanging to the stem, it is but an useless and unsightly appendage.THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Henry Dearborn, Aug. 17, 1821

Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, The Golden Legend

Most fatal diseases had their own specific odor, but ... none was as specific as old age.GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Love in the Time of Cholera

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, Family: The Ties that Bind ... And Gag!

You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.PHYLLIS DILLER, attributed, Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes & Brilliant Remarks

Source:www.notable-quotes.com