Age Quotes

At thirty a man suspects himself a fool;Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;At fifty chides his infamous delay,Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;In all the magnanimity of thoughtResolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

~ Edward Young

The faded glittering in his eyes is like a falling star on a dull autumn's day.

~ Anna Paszkiewicz

... forty's nothing, at fifty you're in your prime, sixty's the new forty, and so on.

~ Julian Barnes

My experience with age it instills a degree of patience in some, leaves the virtuous spiritually unchanged, feeds the character defects in others, and brings little wisdom to any of us.

~ James Lee Burke

We were all so young that there were no lines on our faces to read between.

~ Phyllis Theroux

I don't mind getting older, it's a privilege denied to so many!

~ Chris Geiger

There was a charm in being reborn into the world when one was old enough to appreciate it.

~ Thomm Quackenbush

And there was this sweet-looking little old lady with her white hair in a bun and everything, the typical grandmother type, and she was swearing her head off. I guess Alzheimer's had brought out her inner sailor.

~ Vivian Vande Velde

I have the not altogether unsatisfying impression that civilisation is collapsing around me.Is it my age, I wonder, or the age we live in? I am not sure. Civilisations do collapse, after all, but on the other hand people grow old with rather greater frequency.

~ Theodore Dalrymple

The young accept the extraordinary as normal because they do not compare their lives with those of others when everyone is like them.

~ Julius Lester

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age.

~ Gloria Pitzer

Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.He was famous in proverb and famous in rhymeA long while before Queen Victoria's accession.Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wivesAnd more – I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;And his numerous progeny prospers and thrivesAnd the village is proud of him in his decline.At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: Well, of all … Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! … Ho! hi!Oh, my eye!My mind may be wandering, but I confess I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,He sits in the High Street on market day;The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,But the dogs and the herdsman will turn them away.The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED —So that nothing untoward may chance to disturbDeuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposedOr when he's engaged in domestic economy:And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: Well of all …Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …Ho! hi!Oh, my eye!My sight's unreliable, but I can guessThat the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!

~ T.s. Eliot

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

~ Judith Martin

I'm too old to figure out the rights and wrongs of everything.

~ Barbara Else

You do know, I hope, that no man under the age of forty can even approach fascinating.

~ Tasha Alexander

... as we age we have not only to readdress earlier developmental crises but also somehow to find the way to three affirmations that may seem to conflict. ... We have to affirm our own life. We have to affirm our own death. And we have to affirm love, both given and received. [p. 88]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

Since few people arrive at retirement with an understanding that this transition will involve a rethinking of who they are, an interim pattern has emerged, in which travel offers a way of fulfilling deferred daydreams of adventure while the next stage takes shape. [p. 31]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

It's all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it's all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. [p. 62]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

Moving is both liberating and debilitating. Undertaken too late, it is a very stressful process, one that sometimes seems to catapult people into frail old age, and undertaken too soon, it may preempt other possibilities. [p. 38]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

Sorting gets harder as time goes on--it requires a sort of ruthless decisiveness, while indecision results in endless dithering. Five moves, they say, equal a fire. But those who haven't moved may begin to need a fire. [p. 38]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

After all, most of us have lived lives based on commitments made without any way of knowing where they would lead. The uncertainty is an essential element in commitment, the acceptance of consequences an essential element in fidelity. [p. 80]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

As people grow older, some of the ways they have contributed in the past may no longer be possible, but the challenge to society is not only to provide help and care where these are needed but also to offer the opportunity to contribute and care for others [p. 8]

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

now that one was mature then, said Peter, one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year. It increased, he said, alas, perhaps, but one should be glad of it-- it went on increasing in his experience.

~ Virginia Woolf

She looked at his face. So old and wrinkled. So beautiful and just right.

~ R.j. Lawrence

How many years went by unnoticed, unembraced?

~ Rebecca Wells

Our toys were sixteen or seventeen; only the very eldest were in their early twenties, because, apparently, I didn't envision anything of particular interest in life beyond twenty-five. And now I am a greater age than any of the toys were allowed to reach, older than I even cared to imagine as a child.

~ Sara Baume

Life was less of a mystery for every digit that age handed over to him. Time, however, became more cryptic and dealt in destructive consequences.

~ Gayendra Abeywardane

Morrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair.

~ Mitch Albom

For many women, by the time they realize how beautiful they were, it is too late.

~ Robert Black

At 70, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that this too, shall pass.

~ Joseph P. Lash

This was how Dinocrates, recommended only by his good looks and dignified carriage, came to be so famous. But as for me, Emperor, nature has not given me stature, age has marred my face, and my strength is impaired by ill health.

~ Vitruvius Pollio

When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man, he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.

~ Paulo Coelho

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

~ Pico Iyer

...but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was hers, and she watched her son's happiness in sad silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at people dining in his old house.

~ Gustave Flaubert

She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.

~ C.s. Lewis

All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

~ George Orwell

Whether you are aged or weak, you can still serve the Lord

~ Sunday Adelaja

We were girls once. As hard as that is to believe. //Oh you can't see it now--our bodies have stretched and sagged, faces and necks drooping. That's what happens when you get old. Every part of you drops, as if the body is moving closer to where it's from and where it'll return.

~ Brit Bennett

Morning seems to come earlier every year I live.

~ John Steinbeck

No one in the world is really over 28. I wish I had known that when I thought I was 40.

~ Neil A. Hogan