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AGE
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[QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS]

see:

ADOLESCENCE, ADULTS

BABIES

BIRTHDAYS

BOYS

CHILDHOOD

CHILDREN

DEATH

FIFTY

GENERATION GAP

GIRLS

GROWING OLDER

GROWING UP

IMMORTALITY

LIFE

MATURITY

MIDDLE AGE

OLD, OLD AGE

SENIOR CITIZENS

STAYING YOUNG

TEENAGERS

TIME

YOUTH

-

Years ago we discovered the exact point, the
dead center of middle age. It occurs when
you are too young to take up golf and too
old to rush up to the net.
--Franklin Pierce Adams (1881—1960)
American columnist and member of the Algonquin Round Table.
_Nods and Becks_ [1944]


Age is when a girl rings and says 'Do you remember me?'
And you reply, 'No, I don't,' and hang up the receiver.
--attributed to Franklin Pierce Adams (1881—1960)
American columnist and member of the Algonquin Round Table.

-

It is easy to believe that life is long and one's gifts are
vast — easy at the beginning, that is. But as the limits
of life grow more evident; it becomes clear that great
work can be done rarely, if at all.
--Alfred Adler (1870—1937)
Austrian psychologist.
_New Yorker_ [19 February 1972]

Grow up as soon as you can. It pays. The only time you
really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are
slaves to dreams; the old, servants of regrets. Only the
middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of
their wits.
--Hervey Allen (1889—1949)
American novelist.
_Anthony Adverse_ [1933]

You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things
that make you want to live to be a hundred.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935)
American actor, screenwriter, and director.
Dialogue in the 1978 movie _Interiors_.

-

A man is as old as he feels;
a woman as old as she looks.
--"Appletons' Journal" [2 July 1870]

& see:

A man is only as old as the woman he feels.
--Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895—1977)
American film comedian.
Quoted in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's Quotations_ [1977].

-

One thing only has been lent to youth
and age in common — discontent.
--Matthew Arnold (1822—1888)
English Victorian poet and literary and social critic.
"Youth's Agitations" in _New Poems_ [1867].

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;
as we see that the shadows, which are at morning
and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at
midday.
--Thomas Arnold (1795—1842)
English educator and father of Matthew Arnold.
Attributed in Henry Southgate (ed.)
_Many Thoughts of Many Minds_, p. 14 [1862, 3rd edition].

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of
age, that age appears to be best in four things — old
wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to
trust, and old authors to read.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Apothegms_ [1624]

The older I get, the faster I was.
--Charles Barkley (b. 1963)
American professional basketball player.
Bob Costa television interview [22 January 1995].

^^

Ethel Barrymore was in her Hollywood dressing room one day
when a studio usher knocked on the door and called: 'A couple
of gals in the reception room, Miss Barrymore, who say they
went to school with you. What shall I do?'

'Wheel them in,' came the reply.

_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Age — Mostly Old"

^^

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
--John Barrymore (John Sidney Blythe) (1882—1942)
Shakespearean actor.
Quoted in Gene Fowler _Good Night, Sweet Prince_ [1943].

I always wanted to be old, I wanted to say
'O I haven't read that for fifteen years.'
--John Berryman (1914—1972)
American poet.
"Dream Song" #254

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has
wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect
that she is growing older every minute. You are
avenged 1440 times a day.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

In youth we run into difficulties,
in old age difficulties run into us.
--Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818—1885)
American humorist.
Quoted in Donald Day _Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh_ [1972 ed.].

[When asked at age 97 at what age the sex drive ends:]
You'll have to ask somebody older than me.
--Eubie Blake (1883—1983)
American ragtime pianist.
Quoted in Ned Sherrin _Ned Sherrin in His Anecdotage_ [1993].

The cheerful live longest in life, and after it, in our
regards. Cheerfulness is the offshot of goodness.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.
Attributed in Charles Noel Douglas
_Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical_, p. 249 [1917].

No matter how hard you try to be what you once
were, you can only be what you are here and now.
Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've
always been nine years old and will always be. When
you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced
on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you
turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy.
You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now
or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen.
--Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
American science fiction author.
_Dandelion Wine_ [1957]

Age is something that doesn't
matter, unless you are a cheese.
--Billie Burke (Mary William Appleton Burke) (1885—1970)
American actress.
Attributed in Gloria Kaufman & Mary Kay Blakely (eds.)
_Pulling Our Own Strings_ [1980].

It's nice to be here. When you're ninety-
nine years old, it's nice to be anyplace.
--attributed to George Burns [Nathan Birnbaum] (1896—1996)
American comedian.

-

So, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
"So We'll Go No More A-Roving" [1817]


A lady of 'a certain age,' which means
Certainly aged.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
"Don Juan", canto VI, st. 69 [1823]


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 [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", canto II, st. 98 [1812]

-

The dead might as well try to speak to
the living as the old to the young.
--Willa Silbert Cather (1873—1947)
American novelist.
_One of Ours_, bk. II, ch. v [1922]

Young men think old men are fools; but
old men know young men are fools.
--George Chapman (c. 1559—1634)
English playwright.
_All Fools_, V, i [1605]

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse;
always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young
knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.
Letter to his son [17 May 1750].

The woman who tells her age is either too young to
have anything to lose or too old to have anything to
gain.
--Chinese Proverb

What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive.
For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more
journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
"On Old Age," Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh (tr.) in _ Charles William
Eliot (ed.) _The Harvard Classics_ vol. IX, pt. 2. [1909—1914].

When a man of forty falls in love with a girl of twenty,
it isn't her youth he is seeking but his own.
--Lenore Coffee (1897—1984)
American screenwriter.
_Storyline; Recollections of a Hollywood Screenwriter_ [1973]

When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust
others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth,
timid caution of age.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CCCLXIII [1820]

How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door
in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious
and ask him to lunch in advance.
--Noλl Coward (1899—1973)
English playwright, actor, and composer.
_Diary_ [3 June 1956]

About sixty years ago, I said to my father, 'Old
Mr. Senex is showing his age; he sometimes talks
quite stupidly.' My father replied, 'That isn't age.
He's always been stupid. He is just losing his
ability to conceal it.'
--Robertson Davies (1913—1995)
Canadian author and playwright.
"You're Not Geting Older, You're Getting Nosier"
in the _New York Times Book Review_ [12 May 1991].

-

Anyone who says that life begins at forty is full of it.
--attributed to Bette Davis (Ruth Elizabeth Davis) (1908—1989)
American actress.

& see:

Life begins at 40 — but so do fallen arches, rheumatism,
faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the
same person, three or four times.
--attributed to both William Feather (1889—1981) American author,
and Helen Rowland (1875—1950) American author.

-

Age is like love, it cannot be hid.
--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572—1632)
English dramatist and writter of prose pamphlets of London life.
_The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus_ [c. 1598]

^

Chauncey Depew (1834—1928)
American lawyer, politician, and wit.

When Chauncey Depew was quite old, he
was sitting at dinner next to a young woman
wearing a very low-cut, off-the-shoulder
dress. The old lawyer peered at her
dιcolletage, leaned toward her, and
asked, "My dear, what is keeping that
dress on you?" "Only your age, Mr. Depew."

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Youth is a blunder; manhood, a struggle; old age, a regret.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Coningsby: Or, The New Generation_ [1844]

It may be, old age is gentle and fair. . .
Still I tremble at a gray hair.
--Dorothy Dow (1899—1989)
American poet.
"Unbeliever" [1942] _Time and Love_

Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and
health. Some men are born old, and some never grow so.
--Tryon Edwards (1809—1894)
American theologian.
In Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 11 [1891].

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth,
but delicious in the years of maturity.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Quoted in George Schreiber _Portraits & Self-Portraits_ [1936].

The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest . . . You are always
being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to
turn them down.
--T.S. Eliot (1888—1965)
Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist.
"Time" [23 October 1950]

(Si jeunesse savait; si viellesse pouvait.)
If youth knew; if age could.
--Henri Estienne (1531—1598)
French printer and publisher.
"Les Prιmices" [1594]

Thirty — the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list
of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm,
thinning hair.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896—1940)
American novelist.
_The Great Gatsby_, ch. 7 [1925]

She may very well pass for forty-three,
In the dusk with a light behind her.
--W. S. Gilbert (1836—1911)
English writer of comic and satirical verse.
_Trial by Jury _ [1875 opera]

You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore
played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally
he played my husband. If he had lived, I'm sure I would have
played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men
get younger and the women get older.
--Lillian Gish (1896—1993)
American stage and movie actress.
Quoted in Abby Adams _An Uncommon Scold_ [1989].

Once a man's thirty, he's already old,
He is indeed as good as dead.
It's best to kill him right away.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Faust_ The Second Part, act II, "The Gothic Chamber"

[Responding to telegram from his agent, HOW OLD CARY GRANT?:]
OLD CARY GRANT FINE. HOW YOU?
(Attributed, but denied as authentic by Mr. Grant.)
--Cary Grant [Alexander Archibald Leach] (1904—1986)
English actor.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
--Helen Hayes (1900—1993)
American actress.
At age 83, as quoted in Robert Byrne
_1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said_ [1988].

Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes
simple stupidity into arrogant conceit.
--Robert Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_Time Enough For Love_ [1973]

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.
--Ernest Hemingway (1889—1961)
American novelist.
Quoted in A. E. Hotchner
_Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir_, pt. I, ch. 3 [1966].

Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole
world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance
and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but
suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear
more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades
and pictures kept somewhere, "just in case," in the endless
catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and
sometimes almost weep.
--Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen [or Hertzen] (1812—1870)
Russian political thinker, activist, and writer.
_My Past and Thoughts_ [1861—1867]

-

A person is always startled when he hears himself
seriously called an old man for the first time.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858]


A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors;
he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks
of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before
he can come near their camp.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Guardian Angel_ [1867]

-

Oh, to be seventy again!
--attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
At age ninety, upon seeing a beautiful young woman.

The Grecian ladies counted their age from their marriage, not their birth.
--Homer (c. 850? BC)
Greek epic poet.
Attributed in Thomas Fielding _Select Proverbs of All Nations_, p. 212 [1824].

A woman is as old as she looks before breakfast.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.
_Country Town Sayings_ [1911]

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty
is the youth of old age.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
Quoted in S. G. Lathrop
_Fifty Years and Beyond: Or, Gathered Gems for the Aged_, p. 376 [1881].

Any time I think I feel myself growing old I tell
myself, 'Self, I haven't got time for that today.
I'll think about it tomorrow.'
--Norma Hunkele
alt.fifty-plus.friends (USENET newsgroup)

May you live to be a hundred years,
With one extra year to repent.
--Irish toast

No man is ever old enough to know better.
--attributed to Holbrook Jackson (1874—1948)
British journalist, writer, and publisher.

I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and
remaining a mere monument of the times which
are past.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Charles Pinckney [3 September 1816].

Let us sing of the days that are gone, Maggie,
When you and I were young.
--George Washington Johnson (1838—1917)
Canadian teacher and poet.
"When You and I Were Young, Maggie" [1866]
(Music by James Austin Butterfield.)

Cautious age suspects the flattering form,
And only credits what experience tells.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
"Irene" (his only play, first performed on 6 February 1749.)

Most men make use of the first part of their life
to render the last part miserable.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
_Les Caractθres_ [1688] "De l'Homme"

An awful debility, a lessened utility,
A loss of mobility is a strong possibility.
In all probability I'll lose my virility,
And you your fertility and desirability.
And this liability of total sterility
Will lead to hostility and a sense of futility,
So lets act with agility while we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility and loose the ability.
--Tom Lehrer (b. 1928)
American songwriter and satirist.
"When You Are Old And Grey" (song)

The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence and obsolescence.
--Art Linkletter (1912—2010)
Canadian-born American radio and television personality.
_A Child's Garden of Misinformation_, ch. 8 [1965]

-

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 (1807—1882)
American poet.
Closing lines, _Morituri Salutamus_ [1875]


It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"Autumn Within"

-

After 60, it's just patch, patch, patch.
--attributed to Mary Martin (1913—1990)
American actress, dancer, and singer.

-

From the earliest times, the old have rubbed it into the
young that they are wiser than they, and before the young
had discoverd what nonsense this was they were old too,
and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_Cakes and Ale_, ch. 11 [1930]


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 (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_The Summing Up_, ch. 73 [1938]

-

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins
to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum
of his villainy.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Attributed in Evan Esar _20,000 Quips & Quotes_ [1995].

Oft in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
--Thomas Moore (1779—1852)
Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician.
_National Airs_ [1815]
"Oft in the Stilly Night" st. 1

Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless,
and foolhardy. Children & old people have everything
to gain and nothing much to lose. It's middle-age
which is cursed by the desperate need to cling to
some finger-hold halfway up the mountain, to conform,
not to cause trouble, to behave well.
--John Mortimer (1923—2009)
English barrister and author.
_Murderers & Other Friends_ [1994]

The English have this extraordinary respect
for longevity. The best example of this was
Queen Victoria, a most unpleasant woman
who achieved a sort of public affection simply
by living to be an enormous age.
--Malcolm Muggeridge (1903—1990)
British writer, broadcaster, and journalist.
Quoted in Miriam Ringo (comp.)
_Nobody Said it Better! - 2700 Wise & Witty Quotations_ [1980].

-

How confusing the beams from memory's lamp are;
One day a bachelor, the next a grampa.
What is the secret of the trick?
How did I get old so quick?
--Ogden Nash (1902—1971)
American writer of humorous poetry.
_You Can't Get There from Here_ [1957] "Preface to the Past"


Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.
--Ogden Nash (1902—1971)
American writer of humorous poetry.
"Crossing The Border"

-

-

The seven ages of man: spills, drills,
thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.
--Richard John Needham (1912—1996)
British-born Canadian writer.
_The Wit and Wisdom of Richard Needham_ [1982]


For the first half of your life, people tell you what
you should do; for the second half, they tell you
what you should have done.
--attributed to Richard John Needham (1912—1996)
British-born Canadian writer.

-

Age does not protect you from love. But love,
to some extent, protects you from age.
--Anaοs Nin (1903—1977)
French-born American writer.
_Winter of Artifice_ [1939]

At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
Last words in his notebook [17 April 1949].

Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art,
in literature — subtract the work of the men above forty, and
while we should miss great great treasures, even priceless
treasures, we would practically be where we are today. . . .
The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done
between the ages of twenty-five and forty.
--Sir William Osler (1849—1919)
Canadian-born physician.Address at Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Md. [22 February 1905].

-

[Response when asked his age:]
How old would you be if you didn't know
how old you was?
--Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1906—1982)
American baseball pitcher in both the Negro Leagues and
the Major League; inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1971.
Quoted in Garson Kanin _It Takes a Long Time to Become Young_ [1978].


Age is a question of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
--Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1906—1982)
American baseball pitcher in both the Negro Leagues and
the Major League; inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1971.
Quoted in Lee Green _Sportswit_ [1986].

-

We get too soon old and too late smart.
--Pennsylvania Dutch proverb

Young men think old men fools, and
old men know young men to be so.
--Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714—1794)
English jurist.
Attributed by Pratt to a "Dr. Metcalf".

When I was young there was no respect for the young, and now
that I am old there is no respect for the old. I missed out coming
and going.
--attributed to J.B. [John Boynton] Priestley (1894—1984)
English novelist, playwright and critic.

Das Alter wδgt, die Jugend wagt
(Age considers, youth ventures.)
--Ernst Benjamin Salomo Raupach (1784—1852)
German dramatist.
Quoted in James Wood
_Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern_, p.53 [1893].

I will not make age an issue. . . . I am not going
to exploit for political purposes my opponent's
youth and inexperience.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
U.S. President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
(Said at age 73 regarding his 56-year-old opponent, Walter F. Mondale,
during a televised presidential campaign debate [21 October 1984].)

In youth, one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears.
--Joseph Roux (1834—1886)
French parish priest and writer.
_Meditations of a Parish Priest_; tr. from the
third French edition by Isabel F. Hapgood [1886].

The young have aspirations that never come to pass,
the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
--Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870—1916)
Scottish writer.
_Reginald_ [1904]

The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_Dialogues in Limbo_, ch. 3 [1925]

^^

Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895—1967)
British conductor and organist.

At the age of seventy, Sargent was asked by
an interviewer: "To what do you attribute
your advanced age?"

"Well," replied the conductor, "I suppose I
must attribute it to the fact I haven't died
yet."

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000]

^^

I have often noticed that a kindly, placid good-
humor is the companion of longevity, and, I
suspect, frequently the leading cause of it.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
Quoted in John Gibson Lockhart
_Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_ , p. 593 [1901].

In a dream, you are never eighty.
--Anne Sexton (1928—1974)
American poet who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
"Old", l. 18 [1962]

-

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
that are written down old with all the characters of
age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie,
Sir John!
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Henry IV_, pt. II, i, iii [1597]


A light heart lives long.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, V, ii [1598]


Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Henry V_, IV, iii [1598—1599]


Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_The Passionate Pilgrim_ [1599]

-

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
_Man and Superman_ "Maxims for Revolutionists" [1903, opened in 1905]

The ingredients of health and long life, are,
Great temperance, open air,
Easy labor, little care.
--Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586)
English soldier, poet, and courtier.
Quoted in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 221 [1908 ed.].

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the old man.
--Shel Silverstein (1930—1999)
Ameican poet and songwriter.
"The Little Boy and the Old Man"
in _A Light in the Attic_ [1981]

-

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part
of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists
the circulation of their blood.
--Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946)
American-born man of letters.
_Afterthoughts_ [1931] "Age and Death"


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 full moon through a blur of great, romantic
tears?
--Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946)
American-born man of letters.
"Last Words" _More Trivia_ [1934]

-

In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the
middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach
all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end,
most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to
living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure,
our less-than-ideal families — and even our politicians!
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.
_Call to Greatness_ [1954]

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes
you never committed and when you're older you
begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed.
It evens itself out.
--I.F. Stone [Isidor Feinstein] (1907—1989)
American investigative journalist.
"International Herald Tribune" [16 March 1988]; quoted in
Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 25 [1993].

-

This day let us not be told
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
"Stella's Birthday March 13, 1726"


Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 269 [1908 ed.].

-

A man is as old as his arteries.
--Thomas Sydenham (1624—1689)
English physician recognized as a founder of clinical medicine and epidemiology.
Quoted in Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, vol. IV, p. 922. [1928].

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
Attributed in Kate Sanborn
_A Year of Sunshine; Cheerful Extracts for Every Day in the Year_ [1886 ed.].

[Upon turning 50:]
I spit on the grave of my awful forties.
--James Thurber (1894—1961)
American humorist and cartoonist.
Letter to Herman & Dorothy Miller [9 December 1944].
In Harrison Kinney (ed.) _The Thurber Letters: The Wit,
Wisdom and Surprising Life of James Thurber_ [2002].

The best years of a woman's life —
the ten years between 39 and 40.
--attributed to Sophie Tucker (1884—1966)
American vaudeville artist.

That vague, crepuscular time, the time of regrets that resemble
hopes, of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth has passed,
but old age has not yet arrived.
--Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818—1883)
Russian novelist, poet, and playwright.
_Fathers and Sons_ [1862], tr. by Harry Stevens.

Age steals away all things, even the mind.
--Virgil (70—19 B.C.)
Roman poet.
_Eclogues_ [43—37 BC], IX, 51

Youth is a silly, vapid state,
Old age with fears and ills is rife;
This simple boon I beg of Fate —
A thousand years of Middle Life.
--Carolyn Wells (1862—1942)
American writer.
_My Boon_

A little more tired at close of day,
A little less anxious to have our way;
A little less ready to scold and blame;
A little more care of a brother's name;
And so we are nearing our journey's end,
Where time and eternity meet and blend.
--Rollin J. Wells (1848—1923)
American poet.
"Growing Old"

So here I sit in the early candle-light of old
age — I and my book — casting backward
glances over our travel'd road.
--Walt Whitman (1819—1892)
American poet.
"November Boughs_ [1888]

-

The old believe everything; the middle-aged
suspect everything; the young know everything.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young_ [1894]


Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society
is full of women of the very highest birth who have,
of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for
years.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The Importance of Being Earnest_, act III [1895]

-

1890: Old man in tuxedo:
'As long as they don't think I'm poor...'

1980: Old man in tennis togs:
'As long as they don't think I'm old...'

--Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
American journalist and novelist.
Two-panel cartoon.

-

-

A man is a fool if he drinks before he
reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he
doesn't afterward.
--Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)
American architect.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [22 June 1958].

& note:

There's no such thing as bad whiskey. Some
whiskeys just happen to be better than others.
But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's
fifty, and then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
Quoted in James M. Webb and A. Wigfall Green
_William Faulkner of Oxford_ [1965].

-

-

It's a sign of age if you feel like the morning after
the night before and you haven't been anywhere.
--anon.

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my
doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I
decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted,
gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But,
by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.
--anon.

I've sure gotten old. I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement,
new knees. Fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't
hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take forty different medications
that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have bouts with
dementia. Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends. But, thank
God, I still have my driver's license.
--anon.

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used
to be.
--anon.

--

A man escaped jail by digging a hole from his jail cell to the outside
world. When finally his work was done, he emerged in the middle
of a preschool playground. “I’m free, I’m free!” he shouted.

“So what,” said a little girl. “I’m four.”

--

A tour group is visiting the Grand Canyon, and
the tour guide asks if anyone knows the age of
the canyon. Everybody is mumbling but nobody
answers. An actuary raises his hand and says,
"one million and three years old!" The guide
is amazed and asks the actuary how he knows
this so exactly. The actuary answers, "Three
years ago I visited the Grand Canyon, and one
of your guides said the canyon was one million
years old."

--

GOING FROM YOUTH TO MIDDLE AGE

Then : Getting into a new, hip joint
Now : Getting a new hip joint

Then : Moving to California because it's cool
Now : Moving to California because it's warm

Then : Long hair
Now : Longing for hair

Then: Acid rock
Now : Acid reflux

Then : You're growing pot
Now : Your growing pot

Then : Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor
Now : Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

Then : Worrying about no one coming to your party
Now : Worrying about no one coming to your funeral

Then : Killer weed
Now : Weed killer

-----

hoary [HAWR-ee], adjective:
1. Tedious from familiarity; stale.
2. Gray or white with age.
3. Ancient or venerable.

immemorial (adj.)
So old that it seems always to have existed

senescent (adj.) [sκ-'nes-κnt]
The state of being old, the process of becoming old.


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