OLD AGE QUOTES III

quotations about old age

Old Age quote

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"

Tags: John Ashbery


After a man passes sixty, his mischief is mainly in his head.

EDGAR WATSON HOWE

Country Town Sayings

Tags: Edgar Watson Howe


Before forty we live forwards; after forty we live backwards.

CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM

The Maxims of Marmaduke

Tags: Charles Edward Jerningham


You read the past in some old faces.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The Virginians

Tags: William Makepeace Thackeray


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

Tags: William Makepeace Thackeray


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

Tags: Sara Gruen


This week, a 95-year-old woman married a 98-year-old man to become the world's oldest newlyweds. They're registered at Bed, Sponge Bath and Beyond.

JIMMY FALLON

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, March 2, 2012

Tags: Jimmy Fallon


In youth all doors open outward; in old age all open inward.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: Francis Bacon


I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

PAUL NEWMAN

The Guardian, April 10, 2005

Tags: Paul Newman


Age is information failure. The body loses fluency.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Stone Gods

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


Age is never so old as youth would measure it.

JACK LONDON

"The Wit of Porportuk"

Tags: Jack London


Few know how to be old.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tags: Francois de La Rochefoucauld


Old age is perplexing to imagine in part because the definition of it is notoriously unstable. As people age, they tend to move the goalposts that mark out major life stages.

CERIDWEN DOVEY

"What Old Age Is Really Like", The New Yorker, October 1, 2015


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"

Tags: Carmen Sylva


Old age is particularly difficult to assume because we have always regarded it as something alien, a foreign species.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

The Coming of Age

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


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

Swann's Way

Tags: Marcel Proust


As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
'Neath every one a friend.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Sixty-eighth Birthday

Tags: James Russell Lowell


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

Tags: Herman Melville


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

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow