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Home / Quotes / Aging

Aging

by Patricia Petro

young / older womanThere must be a day or two in a man’s life when he is the precise age for something important. —Franklin Pierce Adams

Middle age occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net. —Franklin Pierce Adams

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 to the net. —Franklin Pierce Adams

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent—that is to triumph over old age. —Amos Bronson Alcott

While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be. —Amos Bronson Alcott

You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred. —Woody Allen

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

I’m not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You’re as old as you feel. —Henri Frederic Amiel

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened. —Cora Harvey Armstrong

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. —Herbert Asquith

Old age is like everything else; to make a success of it, you’ve got to start young. —Fred Astaire

I think your whole life shows in your face, and you should be proud of that. —Lauren Bacall

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. —Francis Bacon, Apothegm

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. —Francis Bacon

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. —Lucille Ball

What could be more beautiful than a dear old lady growing wise with age? Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it. —Brigitte Bardot

It’s sad to grow old, but nice to ripen. —Brigitte Bardot

I recently had my annual physical examination, which I get once every seven years, and when the nurse weighed me, I was shocked to discover how much stronger
the Earth’s gravitational pull has become since 1990. —Dave Barry

Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once. —Dave Barry, “Your Disintegrating Body,” Dave Barry Turns 40, 1990

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh yourself. —Ethel Barrymore

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. —John Barrymore

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am. —Bernard M. Baruch

A man of forty today has nothing to worry him but falling hair, inability to button the top button, failing vision, shortness of breath, a tendency of the collar to shut off all breathing, trembling of the kidneys to whatever tune the orchestra is playing, and a general sense of giddiness when the matter of rent is brought up. —Robert Benchley

A man of sixty has spent twenty years in bed and over three years in eating. —Arnold Bennett

Middle age is having a choice between two temptations, and choosing the one that’ll get you home earlier. —Dan Bennett

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. —Jack Benny

I never felt that there was anything enviable in youth. I cannot recall that any of us, as youths, admired our condition to excess or had a desire to prolong it. —Bernard Berenson

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. —Ambrose Bierce

At 19, everything is possible and tomorrow looks friendly. —Jim Bishop

When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again. —Hugo L. Black

If I’d known I was going to live this long (100 years), I’d have taken better care of myself. —Ubie Blake

Aging is a chance to make what was good, great; and what was never so good, better. —Amy Bloom

As a graduate of the Zsa Zsa Gabor School of Creative mathematics, I honestly do not know how old I am. —Erma Bombeck

To resist the frigidity of old age, one must combine the body, the mind and the heart; and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love. —Karl von Bonstetten

We are only young once. That is all society can stand. —Bob Bowen

It is possible at any age to discover a lifelong desire you never knew you had. —Robert Brault

Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be. —Robert Browning

It is the old apple trees that are decked with the loveliest blossoms.
It is the ancient redwoods that rise to majestic heights.
It is the old violins that produce the richest tones.
It is ancient coins, stamps and furniture that people seek.
It is the old friends that are loved the best.
Thank God for the blessings of age and the wisdom,
patience and maturity that go with it.
—Sister Mary Gemma Brunke

When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day. —Marty Bucella

We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. —Pearl S. Buck

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn’t even know it. —Lois McMaster Bujold

It is not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart. —Edward Bulwer-Lytton

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old. —George Burns

To me, old age is always ten years older than I am. —John Burroughs

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty—they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. —Martin Buxbaum

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face. —Albert Camus

The greatest comfort of my old age, and that which gives me the highest satisfaction, is the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices I have done to others. —Marcus Cato

Middle age is when your classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald they don’t recognize you. —Bennett Cerf

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty, but it’s up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. —Coco Chanel

Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative. —Maurice Chevalier, New York Times, 9 October 1960

Men grow old, pearls grow yellow, there is no cure for it. —Chinese proverb

Before thirty, men seek disease; after thirty, diseases seek men. —Chinese proverb

An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have: The older she gets, the more interested he is in her. —Agatha Christie

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind. —Marcus Tullius Cicero

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end. —Marcus Tullius Cicero

We’ve put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it. —Frank Clark

Middle Age: When you begin to exchange your emotions for symptoms. —Georges Clemenceau

Don’t underestimate the powers of an open mind. A lot of people are concerned with staying physically young; while that’s appealing, I’m more interested in maintaining my curiosity. —Diablo Cody

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature. —Harold Coffin

Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old; it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother. —G. Norman Collie

The true way to render age vigorous is to prolong the youth of the mind. —Mortimer Collins

A man is as old as he’s feeling, A woman as old as she looks. —Mortimer Collins

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator. —Confucius

Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries. —Bill Cosby

They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it very much. — Malcolm Cowley

The whole business of marshaling one’s energies becomes more and more important as one grows older. —Hume Cronyn

It is better to wear out than to rust out. —Bishop Richard Cumberland

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.—Charles Darwin

Old age ain’t no place for sissies. —Bette Davis

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. —Chili Davis

Middle age is youth without levity, and age without decay. —Doris Day

The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you’ll grow out of it. —Doris Day

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought. —Emily Dickinson

I don’t know how you feel about old age . . . but, in my case, I didn’t even see it coming. It hit me from the rear. —Phyllis Diller

You know you’re getting older when your back starts going out more than you do. —Phyllis Diller

If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people. —Jim Eason

The answer to old age is to keep one’s mind busy and to go on with one’s life as if it were interminable. I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was dying of tuberculosis. —Leon Edel

I am long on ideas, but short on time. I expect to live to be only about a hundred. —Thomas Edison

I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates. —T. S. Eliot

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, 23 October 1950

The years teach much which the days never knew. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. —English proverb

If we could be twice young and twice old, we could correct all our mistakes. Birth and Death are the two noblest expressions of bravery. —Euripides

Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair. —Sam Ewing

Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest. —Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, 1980

A man is getting old when he walks around a puddle instead of through it. —R. C. Ferguson

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. —Jim Fiebig

Old age is not for sissies. —Malcolm Forbes

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. —Henry Ford

He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it’s bottled. —Gene Fowler

At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgement. —Benjamin Franklin

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. —French proverb

Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength. —Betty Friedan

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday, but never remembers her age. —Robert Frost

Youth is a disease from which we all recover. —Dorothy Fulheim

Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow. —Margaret Fuller

At times is it seems that I am living my life backward, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles—wrinkles that my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there, and that I had the greatest trouble removing. —Andre Gide

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

It is lovely, when I forget all birthdays, including my own, to find that somebody remembers me. —Ellen Glasgow

For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday. —John Glenn

There is still no cure for the common birthday. —John Glenn

Each ten years of a man’s life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. “Why,” I answered without a thought, “Now.” —David Grayson

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered. —Graham Greene

I am getting to an age when I can only enjoy the last sport left. It is called hunting for your spectacles. —Edward Grey

You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime. —John P. Grier

Everyone is the age of their heart. —Guatemalan proverb

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler-quieter, warmer. —Dag Hammarskjold

In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived. —Knut Hamsun

There are days of oldness, and then one gets young again. —Katherine Butler Hathaway

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn’t original sin. He’s born with the tragedy that he has to grow up . . . a lot of people don’t have the courage to do it. —Helen Hayes

If you survive long enough, you’re revered—rather like an old building. —Katherine Hepburn

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. —Katherine Hepburn

You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of old age: it is when you go out into the streets of London and realize for the first time how young the policemen look. —Sir Seymour Hicks

I find that a man is as old as his work. If his work keeps him from moving forward, he will look forward with the work. —William Ernest Hocking

At middle age the soul should be opening up like a rose, not closing up like a cabbage. —John Andrew Holmes

You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A man is or may be young to after sixty, and not old before eighty. —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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, Jr.

What I wouldn’t give to be seventy again! —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Old age is fifteen years older than I am. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything till noon. That’s when it’s time for my nap. —Bob Hope

You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. —Bob Hope

Middle age is when you still believe you’ll feel better in the morning. —Bob Hope

Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. —Bob Hope

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. —Victor Hugo

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age. —Victor Hugo

No man is ever old enough to know better. —Holbrook Jackson

The lost leaves measure our years; they are gone as the days are gone. —Richard Jefferies, The Life of the Fields, 1908

Men are like wine. Some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. —C. E. M. Joad

At seventy-seven it is time to be earnest. —Samuel Johnson

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. —Franz Kafka

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is the work of art. —Garson Kanin

I am old enough to see how little I have done in so much time, and how much I have to do in so little. —Sheila Kaye-Smith

Once I was looking through the kitchen window at dusk, and I saw an old woman looking in. Suddenly the light changed and I realized that the old woman was myself. You see, it all happens on the outside; inside one doesn’t change. —Molly Keane

Youth had been a habit of hers for so long that she could not part with it. —Rudyard Kipling

Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week. —Louis Kronenberger

Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life—it gave me me. —Anne Lamott

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. —Doug Larson

Age attacks when we least expect it. —Carrie Latet

Age is like the newest version of a software—it has a bunch of great new features, but you lost all the cool features the original version had. —Carrie Latet

You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind. —Timothy Leary

Birth may be a matter of a moment, but it is a unique one. —Frederick Leboyer

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art. —Stanislaw Lec

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. —Caryn Leschen

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. —Doris Lessing

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

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, Autumn Within

Youth comes but once in a lifetime. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The secret to eternal youth is arrested development. —Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most, live the longest. —Reverend Larry Lorenzoni

The elderly don’t drive that badly; they’re just the only ones with time to do the speed limit. —Jason Love

Time draweth wrinkles in a fair face, but addeth fresh colors to a fast friend. —John Lyle

Most of us can remember a time when a birthday—especially if it was one’s own brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. —Robert Lynd

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. —Douglas MacArthur

In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage—so long are you young. When the wires are all down and our heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old. —Douglas MacArthur

Please don’t retouch my wrinkles. It took me so long to earn them. —Anna Magnani

They talk about the economy this year. Hey, my hairline is in recession, my waistline is in inflation. Altogether, I’m in a depression. —Rick Majerus

The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth. —Marya Mannes, More in Anger, 1958

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever. —Don Marquis

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough. —Don Marquis

Of middle age, the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles. —Don Marquis

Growing old is a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form. —Andre Maurois

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. —Groucho Marx

The best thing about getting old is that all those things you couldn’t have when you were young you no longer want. —L. S. McCandless

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men. —Colleen McCullough

Spiritual sloth, or acedia, was known as The Sin of the Middle Ages. It’s the sin of my middle age, too. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

Age is a slowing down of everything except fear. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

As we grow older, our capacity for enjoyment shrinks, but not our appetite for it. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

In youth we are plagued by desire; in later years, by the desire to feel desire. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

There is always some specific moment when we become aware that our youth is gone; but, years after, we know it was much later. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age. —Margaret Mead

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard there is nothing you can do about it. —Golda Meir

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. —Henry L. Mencken

It takes about ten years to get used to how old you are. — Raymond A. Michel

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own. —Bette Midler

How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
—John Milton

The first hundred years are the hardest. —Wilson Mizner

Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything. —Moe, from the Simpsons

The idea is to die young as late as possible. —Ashley Montagu

Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces. —Michel de Montaigne

Preparation for old age should begin no later than one’s teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement. —Dwight L. Moody

There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. —John Mortimer

Middle age is when you’ve met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else. —Ogden Nash

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. —Ogden Nash

I am getting old and the sign of old age is that I begin to philosophize and ponder over problems which should not be my concern at all. —Jawaharlal Nehru

The older you get the stronger the wind gets—and it’s always in your face. —Jack Nicklaus

Sometimes age succeeds, sometimes it fails. It depends on you. —Ravensara Noite

Don’t worry about temptation—as you grow older, it starts avoiding you. —Old Farmer’s Almanac

When you’re a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you’re older, it’s a straight part. —Laurence Olivier

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? —Satchel Paige

You know you’re getting old when all the names in your black book have M.D. after them. —Arnold Palmer

In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days long. —Nikita Ivanovich Panin

Real birthdays are not annual affairs. Real birthdays are the days when we have a new birth. —Ralph Parlette

In youth the days are short and the years are long. In old age the years are short and day’s long. —Pope Paul VI

We grow too soon old and too late smart. —Pennsylvania Dutch proverb

Youth has no age. —Pablo Picasso

It takes a long time to grow young. —Pablo Picasso

Life begins at forty. —W. B. Pitkin

Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master but from many. —Plato

The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines. —Plato

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the west garden; They hurt me. I grow older. —Li Po

Is that a birthday? ’tis, alas! too clear;
‘Tis but the funeral of the former year.
—Alexander Pope

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you have not committed. —Anthony Powell

It seems no more than right that men should seize time by the forelock, for the rude old fellow, sooner or later, pulls all their hair out. —George Dennison Prentice, Prenticeana, 1860

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age—I missed it coming and going. —J. B. Priestly

We pay when old for the excesses of youth. —J. B. Priestley

The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once. —H. V. Prochnow

You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again. —Bonnie Prudden

Middle age: The time when you’ll do anything to feel better, except give up what is hurting you. —Robert Quillen

The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible. —Judith Regan

The advantage of being eighty years old is that one has had many people to love. —Jean Renoir

Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It’s more often a succession of jerks. —Jean Rhys

Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time. —Jean Paul Richter

There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course. —Rainer Maria Rilke

Adulthood is when the ghosts of childhood appear. —Holden Rinehart

The last birthday that’s any good is 23. —Andy Rooney

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice. —Eleanor Roosevelt

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young. —Theodore Roosevelt

A man is not old as long as he is seeking something. —Jean Rostand

First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down. —Leo Rosenberg

Old men are fond of giving good advice, to console themselves for being no longer in a position to give bad examples. —François Duc de la Rochefoucauld

When you turn thirty, a whole new thing happens: you see yourself acting like you parents. —Blair Sabol

There are people whose watch stops at a certain hour and who remain permanently at that age. —Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

It well becomes a man who is no longer young to forget that he ever was. —Seigneur de Saint-Evremond, 1696

A man’s age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man’s age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-1944

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age. —George Sand

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. —George Santayana

Like many women my age, I am 28 years old. —Mary Schmich

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. —Arthur Schopenhauer

Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed. —Charles Schultz

It’s a mere moment in a man’s life between an All-Star Game and an Old-timers’ Game. —Vin Scully

In a dream you are never eighty. —Anne Sexton

There was a star danced, and under that was I born. —William Shakespeare

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. —George Bernard Shaw

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us. —Beverly Sills

One of the best parts of growing older? You can flirt all you like since you’ve become harmless. —Liz Smith

There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine. —Logan Pearsall Smith

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood. —Logan Pearsall Smith

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. —Robert Southey, The Doctor

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality. —Muriel Spark

You’ve heard of the three ages of man: Youth, age, and “you are looking wonderful.” —Francis Cardinal Spellman

The heyday of woman’s life is the shady side of fifty. —Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We are always the same age inside. —Gertrude Stein

The trick is growing up without growing old. —Casey Stengel

Age is a high price to pay for maturity. —Tom Stoppard

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings. —Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1711

Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old. —Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1711

Age considers; youth ventures. —Rabindranath Tagore

Age swallows our childhood. —Jareb Teague

When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the truth,
And taken in exchange—my youth.
—Sara Teasdale

Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy. —Dorothy Thompson

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. —Henry David Thoreau

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man. —James Thurber

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man. —Leon Trotsky, Diary in Exile, 1935

Women deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of twenty eight and forty. —James Thurber

From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash. —Sophie Tucker

Wrinkles merely indicate where smiles have been. —Mark Twain

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. —Mark Twain

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be, so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it. —Mark Twain

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. —Mark Twain

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. —Mark Twain

I cried on my 18th birthday. I thought 17 was such a nice age. You’re young enough to get away with things, but you’re old enough, too. —Liv Tyler

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. —Samuel Ullman

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to. —Bill Vaughn

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned. —Judith Viorst

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. —Voltaire

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. —Voltaire

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. —Kurt Vonnegut

Don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up. —John Wagner

Everything slows down with age, except the time it takes cake and ice cream to reach your hips. —John Wagner

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made.
—Edmund Waller

There’s no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow. —Fay Weldon

At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable. —Orson Welles

The tendency of old age to the body, say the physiologists, is to form bone. It is as rare as it is pleasant to meet with an old man whose opinions are not ossified. —Bob Wells

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities. —E. B. White

I fear vastly more a futile, incompetent old age than I do any form of death. —William Allen White

Those whom the gods love grow young. —Oscar Wilde

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell anything. —Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

I am not young enough to know everything. —Oscar Wilde

The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything. —Oscar Wilde

Thirty five is a very attractive age; London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years. —Oscar Wilde

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. —Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. —Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Never lose sight of the fact that old age needs so little but needs that little so much. —Margaret Willour

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. —Tom Wilson

The best way to look at aging is to see it as an opportunity to leave what didn’t work behind and step boldly into a brand new future. —Oprah Winfrey

There is only one cure for gray hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine. —P.G. Wodehouse

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them. —Virginia Woolf

The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left. —Jerry M. Wright

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened. —Jennifer Yane

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clasp its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.
—William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”

Like our shadows, our wishes lengthen as our sun declines. —Edward Young, Night Thoughts

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. —Author Unknown

By the time I have money to burn, my fire will have burnt out. —Author Unknown

You can’t hide your true colours as you approach the autumn of your life. —Author Unknown

We are young only once, after that we need some other excuse. —Author Unknown

There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I’m sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don’t hurt. —Author Unknown

I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now. —Author Unknown

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. —Author Unknown

You know you’ve reached middle age when a doctor, not a policeman, tells you to slow down, all you exercise are your prerogatives and it takes you longer to rest than to get tired. —Author Unknown

They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body. —Author Unknown

Don’t worry about avoiding temptation—as you grow older, it starts avoiding you. —Author Unknown

Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician. —Author Unknown

Middle age is when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places. —Author Unknown

I don’t do alcohol anymore—I get the same effect just standing up fast. —Author Unknown

I’m not 40, I’m eighteen with 22 years experience. —Author Unknown

Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy. —Author Unknown

Middle age is when we can do just as much as ever, but would rather not. —Author Unknown

When the problem is not so much resisting temptation as finding it, you may just be getting older. —Author Unknown

Middle age is when work is a lot less fun and fun is a lot more work. —Author Unknown

Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them while driving. —Author Unknown

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