OLD AGE QUOTES VII
quotations about old age
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
Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
IRVIN D. YALOM
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
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
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
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
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"
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!
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 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
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 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
White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.
HONORE DE BALZAC
The Lily of the Valley
I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, mid-life for an elephant, and ancient for a quarter-miler, whose son now says, "Dad I just can't run the quarter with you anymore unless I bring something to read."
BILL COSBY
Time Flies
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
You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes & Brilliant Remarks
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
PHILIP ROTH
Everyman
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
As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls across our path; the realities of life seem less crude than of yore, they touch our senses less intimately, and they lose much of their poignancy.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
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