My brain is
much more easily fatigued now, and I have forgotten lots of things, but I think
on the whole that it is much clearer than it was. The simile is that, if the
level of the sea of forgetfulness rises over a landscape, the peaks of the
mountains that remain above the surface stand in clearer relationship than when
you could see all the intervening
landscape. Konrad Lorenz
I promise
to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by
merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their
ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
Douglas MacArthur
Be on the
alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of life it may occur. Muriel
Spark
The great
use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. William James
Life is no
brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for
a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it
on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
Age is a
grace that we must earn, not a weight to crush us.
Nobody
knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to
know better. —Anonymous
Nobody
grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting
their ideals. Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the
soul. —Watterson
Nature
gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you
have at fifty. —
I have no
romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are
not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old — or being
young, for that matter. —Katharine Hepburn
We turn not older with years, but newer every
day. —Emily Dickinson
Most people like the old days best — they were
younger then. —Anonymous
In this life the old believe everything, the
middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything. —Anonymous
We are all, it seems, saving ourselves for the Senior Prom. But
many of us forget that somewhere along the way we must learn to dance. Alan Harrington
By the time
a man gets to green pastures, he can’t climb the fence.
Getting old
is no cause for hysteria. The rose bush does not scream when the petals begin
to fall. Douglas Meador
There’s
hardly a man alive who could not retire very comfortably in his old age if he
could sell his experience for what it cost him.
Retirement
is not the closing of an old door, but the opening of a new one. It is the
exciting approach to an infinite variety of new testing of a man’s ability, new
stretchings of his mind, new releases for his
energies and abilities. All that is required is that he must recognize new
challenge when it presents itself, and accept it
zestfully.
If he has been doing this all of his life, it will be easier for him in the
later years, but in one form or another the opportunity awaits everyone, if he
will only
seek it.
Clarence Randall
For most
men there should come a time of shifting harness, of lightening the load one
way and adjusting it for greater effectiveness in another. That is the time for
the
second
career, time for the old dog to perform new tricks. The new career may bring in
little money; it may be concerned only with good works. On the other hand,
it may
bring in much needed support. It can be a delight to a man who comes at last to
a well-earned job instead of a well-earned rest. Dr. Wilder Penfield
All life is
an experiment. The more experiments you make, the
better. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Prepare to
live by all means, but for Heaven’s sake do not forget to live.”
One cannot
control the length of his life, but he can have something to say about its
width and depth.
Life was
meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for
whatever reason, turn his back on life. Eleanor Roosevelt
Life
without love is a bird without a song. Life without trust is a night without
day. Life without faith is a tree without root. Life without hope is a year without Spring.
Life
without friends is a sun without shade. Life without work is a bloom without
fruit. Dr. William Arthur Ward
Have you
ever thought how solemn a thing it is to live? If you are grateful for your
life, set a value on it: find out how much it is worth, and if it falls below
what you
would
have it, begin to increase its value. . be full of
hope and love, and resolve to make as much of life as you can. Ida Scott Taylor
The first
forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on
it. Arthur Schopenhauer
Maturity is
not being taken in by oneself. Katjetan von Schlaggenberg
Middle age
is when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin changing places. Glenn Dorenbush
Middle age
is when you are not inclined to exercise anything but caution. Arthur Murray
Middle age
is when you have met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you
of someone else and usually it.
“Old age is
the happiest time in a man’s life. The worst of it is,
there’s so little of it.” William S.
Gilbert
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendants
Outnumber your friends.
Life
consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you do hold well. Josh
Billings
The great
use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts is. William James
Age is only
a number, a cipher for the records. A
man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with
less energy and time. Bernard Baruch, on his 85th birthday
Old age
isn’t bad when you consider the alternative. Maurice Chevalier
The years
between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always asked to do things,
and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. T.S. Eliot
Who knows
whether in retirement I shall be tempted to the last infirmity of mundane
minds, which is to write a book. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of
Most people
say that as you get old, you have to give up things. I think you get old
because you give up things. Senator Theodore Francis Green, at 87
The
spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines. Plato
The
advantage of being eighty years old is that one has had many people to
love. Jean Renoir
When you
are forty, half of you belongs to the past. And when you are seventy, nearly all of you. Jean Anouilh
A man is
not old until his regrets take the place of dreams. John Barrymore, "Good
Night, Sweet Prince" 1943
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"
Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour
from the limb,
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near
the brim.
George Gordon, Lord Byron "Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage"
Old age is
no place for sissies. Bette Davis
If youth
but knew; if age but could. Henri Estienne
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
At age
fifty, every man has the face he deserves. George Orwell
Age is a
question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Satchel Paige
How old
would you be if you didn't know how old you was? Satchel Paige
Age seldom
arrives smoothly or quickly. It’s more often a succession of jerks. Jean Rhys
Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art;
But some tell their days by the flow of their
tears
And their lives by the
moans of their hearts.
Abram Joseph Ryan
Old age is the most unexpected of all the
things that happen to a man. Leon Trotsky
Nobody
grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting out
ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the
soul. Samuel Ullman
Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
Edward Young
Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Edward Young "Night
Thoughts"
To stay
young requires the unceasing ability to unlearn old falsehoods. Robert A.
Heinlein
The secret
of eternal youth is arrested development. Alice Roosevelt Longworth
With age,
we become responsible for what's in our heads--the character of the memories
there, the music we are familiar with, the storehouse of books we have
read, the
people whom we can call, the scenery we know and love. Our memories become our
dreams. Edward Hoagland, Harper's, January, 1991.
I promise
to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by
merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their
ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
Douglas MacArthur, New York Times,
Age has
extremely little to do with anything that matters. The difference between one
age and other is, as a rule, enormously exaggerated.--Rose McCaulay
(Dangerous Ages)
Age is no
barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind.--Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Age puzzles
me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly
serene, but my eighties re passionate. I grow more intense as I age.--Florida
Scott-Maxwell
The aging
process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a
snowball.--Doug Larson
Anyone who
keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.--Franz Kafka
Children
are a great comfort in your old age--and they help you reach it faster,
too.--Lionel Kauffman
The
excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning
you're not old.--Rosalyn S. Yalow
The great
thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've
been.--Madeleine L'Engle (The New York Times, 1985)
If you
wait, all that happens is that you get older.--Larry McMurty
A test of a
people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even
tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection
and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a
culture.--Abraham Heschel
We don't
stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.--George
Bernard Shaw
Why is it
that, as we grow older, we are so reluctant to change? It is not so much that
new ideas are painful, for they are not. It is that old ideas are seldom
entirely false, but have truth, great truth in them. The justification for
conservatism is the desire to preserve the truths and standards of the past;
its dangers, of which we are seldom aware, is that in preserving those values,
we may miss the infinitely greater riches that lie in the future.--Dale Turner
Wisdom
doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by
itself.--Tom Wilson
The years like great black oxen tread the
world,
And God, the herdsman goads them on
behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.
--William Butler Yeats
To be seventy years old is like
climbing the
snow-crowned summit, and see
behind you the deep valley stretching
miles and
miles away, and before you
other summits higher and whiter,
which you may have strength to climb,
or may not. Then you sit down and
meditate
and wonder which it will be.
--- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, L.L.B.,(hon), 1859
You don't grow
old; when you cease
to grow, you are old.
--
Charles Judson Herrick, 1868-1960
He who is
of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who
is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are
equally a burden. - Plato
Wrinkles
should merely indicate where the smiles have been. -- Mark Twain, Following the
Equator (Mark Twain Quotations)
Middle age:
when you're sitting at home on Saturday night and the telephone rings and you
hope it isn't for you.
You are
never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream--Les Brown
To be
seventy years young is sometimes far more hopeful than to be forty years old.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
I like the dreams of the future better than
the history of the past. --Thomas
Jefferson
It is
sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a
year. --Tom Lehrer
And in the
end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
--Abraham Lincoln
Middle age
is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of
someone else. --
Old people
should not eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.
--Robert Orben
When it
comes to age we're all in the same boat, only some of us have been aboard a
little longer. --Leo Probst
The wise
man doesn't expect to find life worth living; he makes it that way. - Ancient
Greek Proverb
While there's snow on the roof, it doesn't
mean the fire has gone out in the furnace.
John G. Diefenbaker
“It is my feeling that as we grow older we
should become not less radical but more so. I do not, of course, mean this in
any political-party sense, but in a willingness to struggle for those things in
which we passionately." - Margaret Laurence
Old age has
its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of
youth.
If you take
all the experience and judgment of men over fifty out of the world, there
wouldn't be enough left to run it. Henry Ford
Maturity is that time when the mirrors in our
mind turn to windows and instead of seeing the reflection of ourselves we see
others. Author Unknown
One of the
most important phases of maturing is that of growth from self-centering to an
understanding relationship to others A person is not mature until he has both an
ability and a willingness to see himself as one among others and to do unto
those others as he would have them do to him. H. A. Overstreet
To know how
to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult
chapters in the great art of living. Henri Frederic Amiel
Some men
never seem to grow old. Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new
ideas, they are never chargeable with fogyism.
Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always
enjoy the best of what is, and are the first to find the best of what will be.
Shakespeare
It is not
by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart. Edward
Bulwer-Lytton
A graceful
and honorable old age is the childhood of immortality. Pindar
How
beautiful can time with goodness make an old man look.
Old age
adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt
inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair. J. P. Senn
When we are
young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live
comfortable when we grow old; and when we are old, we perceive it is too late
to live as we proposed.
Age does
not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children. Goethe
He who
would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young,
consider
that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once
been young.
While one
finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what
his years may be. A. B. Alcott
Gray hairs
seem to my fancy like the soft light of the moon, silvering over the evening of
life. Richter
One's age
should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful.
Hard work
at either extremity of life seems out of place.
At
But the
morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.
The
quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. Martin Luther
King
When I was
young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the
elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed nolonger. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth
shirked because they would take too long. - W.
Warning
When I am an
old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I
shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin
sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall
sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble
up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my
stick along the public railings
And make
up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go
out in my slippers in the rain
And pick
the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn
to spit.
You can
wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only
bread and pickle for a week
And hoard
pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we
must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay
our rent and not swear in the street
And set a
good example for the children.
We must
have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe
I ought to practise a little now?
So people
who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When
suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
by Jenny
Joseph
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.
by Henry
Jitterbug Rap
Come
on you Grannies, get in the groove
This
old folks' world is startin' to move
No more waitin' for the phone to ring
No
more huntin' for blues to sing
You
and I got plenty to do
Just playin' catch-up will take a few
Months
of practice then we'll really swing
Just
like Benny or some Dorsey Thing.
The
more we sit, the more we grumble
You'll
feel like your hind end's caught in the rumble
Seat
of your boyfriend's old Model A
Back
in the thirties--that'd be the day.
Forget
about the old days? Not if you're smartest
You
can make new days--you're a new-day artist
Take
all the good stuff you know how to do
Match
it up easy with somethin' brand new.
Surprise all the young bucks, enlighten your kids
Show you've
learned more than preemptive bids.
Join a
few classes, shake those tired limbs
Go for
a workout in broken-down gyms
You'll
fit right in there if you don't watch your step
"Fit" is the right word if you're gonna
be hep.
Try a
new hobby, tie a new fly
Climb
a small mountain just fifty feet high
But
get out and do it, don't sit there and rust
Read a
new book, help the old lady dust
Walk
at your leisure around the school track
Then
wait a few days before you try to go back
Don't
whine about Dentugrip, Maalox and Tums
Call up
your old cronies--those lazy bums
Sprawled 'front of TV rotting away
While you're out there having a wonderful day.
by Frances Weaver
I'm Not As Old As I Used To Be
Senility Prayer
God grant me the Senility
to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
the good fortune
to run into the ones I do,
and the eyesight
to tell the difference.
Anonymous (?)