To
be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary
to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon
be over,
but part of a stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the
remote and unknown future. -Bertrand
Russell
The aster has not wasted spring and summer
because it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn
it is
the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low. So there
are many
people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of
their
natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time
can
come; but their lives have not been wasted.
-Henry Ward Beecher
To
be seventy years young
is sometimes far more
cheerful and
hopeful than
to be forty years old. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
To
resist the frigidity of old age,
one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart. And to keep these in parallel vigor one must exercise, study, and love.
-Bonstettin
If wrinkles must be
written upon our brows, let them not
be written upon the
heart. The spirit should not grow old.
-James A. Garfield
Simplify.
Stop bothering with the non-essentials. Having devoted
my life to my work so far, I should reap the harvest and learn
how to live the rest of it properly. It's time now for
trees and grass and growing things.
-Author
Unknown
One's
age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard
work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday
the sun may burn, and men labor under it;
but the morning and
evening should be alike calm and cheerful.
-Thomas
Arnold
How can
anyone be anything but their age? The trick is to love your age.
Love it when you're young and strong and foolish. Love it
when
you're old and wise. Love it in the middle when the challenges
come and you can solve some of them, maybe most of them. If you
love
your age, you'll never go around wishing you were some other age.
-Miss Lucy (qtd. by Arthur Gordon)
I think we exaggerate the
flexibility
and freshness of young people. Advanced age can be
conducive to conceptual skills
that are extraordinarily important.
-Ross Webber
A
comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth.
Instead of its bringing
sad and melancholy prospects of decay,
it would give us hopes of eternal youth
in a better world. -Lydia
Maria Child
Old
age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold,
you have escaped not from one master but from many.
-Plato
Youth,
Day, Old Age and Night
Youth, large, lusty, loving--youth full of grace, force,
fascination,
Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal
grace, force, fascination?
Day full-blown and splendid--day of the immense sun,
action, ambition, laughter,
The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep
and restoring darkness.
Walt Whitman
I want to tell
people approaching and perhaps fearing old age
that it is a time of discovery. If they say "Of what?"
I can only answer "We must find out for ourselves,
otherwise it wouldn't be discovery."
-Florida
Scott-Maxwell
The
riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the
goal. There is
a little finishing canter before coming to
a standstill. There is time to hear
the kind voice of
friends and to say to one's self: "The work is done." But just as one says that, the answer comes: "The
race is over,
but the work never is done while the power
to work remains." The canter that brings you to a
standstill need not be only coming to a rest. It cannot
be, while you still live. For to live is to function. That is all there is in living.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
A half
century of living should put a good deal into a person's face
besides
a few wrinkles and some unwelcome folds around the chin.
-Frances
Parkinson Keyes
Never
think oldish thoughts. It's oldish
thoughts that
make a person old.
James A.
Farley
In youth
we learn,
in old age we understand.
Marie von
Ebner-Eschenbach
Father
Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries
for none of
his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those
who have used him
well; making them old men and women
inexorably enough, but leaving
their hearts and spirits
young and in full vigor. With such people the
gray head is
but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving
them
his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch
in the quiet calendar
of a well-spent life. -Charles
Dickens
Nobody grows
old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years may
wrinkle the skin,
but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
-Douglas
MacArthur
There is a
fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents,
the creativity you bring to your life and the lives
of the people you love. When you will learn to tap
this source, you will have truly defeated age.
-Sophia Loren
Nature
gives you the face
you have at twenty;
it is up to
you to
merit the face
you have at fifty. -Coco Chanel
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
Robert Browning
Those who
love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age,
but they die
young. -Anonymous
You
must not pity me because
my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways
of not growing old too quickly. -Sidonie
Gabrielle Colette
To
me, old age is always
fifteen years older than I am. -Bernard M. Baruch
If you carry
your childhood with
you,
you never become older. -Abraham Sutzkever
Age is a
question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
-Satchel
Paige
I
planted a maple tree next to the first house I owned, just a skinny
runt of a thing. . . .
It seemed far off in the future before that tree would amount to
anything. But when I went back there forty years later, I couldn't believe my
eyes. The tree was towering over the house, the queen of the neighborhood.
In the meantime, I'd become an old man. This was the first time
I ever really believed
that the world will go on just fine when I'm gone. . . . Ever since
then,
I've been living in tree time. It's a fine way to live.
-Sean
O'Callahan
One
of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that
it's such a nice change from being young.
-Dorothy
Canfield Fisher
Some
people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty--they
merely move it from their faces into their hearts.
-Martin
Buxbaum
Cheerfulness
and content are great beautifiers,
and are famous
preservers of youthful looks. -Charles Dickens
Old people are
always young enough
to learn, with profit. -Aeschylus
Growing Old
Let me grow lovely, growing old--
So many fine things to do;
Laces and ivory, and gold,
And silks need not be new;
And there is healing in old trees,
Old streets a glamour hold;
Why may not I, as well as these,
Grow lovely, growing old?
Karle Wilson Baker
On Growing Old
Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying,
My dog and I are old, too old for roving,
Man, whose passion sets the spindrift flying
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute,
The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land nor your valleys,
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.
Beauty, have pity, for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower,
Spring time of man all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts or loiters or is loud
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close,
Even the night will blossom as the rose.
John Masefield
The
whole of life is a journey toward youthful
old age, toward self-contemplation, love,
gaiety, and, in a fundamental sense, the most
gratifying time of our lives. . . . "Old
age"
should be a harvest time when the riches
of life are reaped and enjoyed, while it
continues to be a special period for
self-development and expansion.
-Ashley
Montague
Age
does not depend upon years, but upon
temperament and health. Some people
are born old, and some never grow so.
-Tryon
Edwards
It
takes a long time
to become young.
-Pablo Picasso
The
span of life vouchsafed us, three-score and ten, is short
enough, if the spirit
gets too haughty and wants to live forever; but on the other
hand,
it is also long enough, if the spirit is a little humble. .
. . Anyone who is wise
and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion
and morals
and politics through the rise and fall of three generations
should be perfectly
content to rise from his or her seat and go away saying
"It was a good show" when the curtain falls.
-Lin
Yutang
The
thing you are ripening toward is the fruit of your
life. It will make you bright inside, no
matter what you are outside. It is a shining
thing. -Stewart
Edward White
When
Goya was 80 he drew an ancient man propped on two
sticks, with a great mass of white hair and beard
all over his face, and the inscription, "I am
still learning."
-Simone
de Beauvoir
What remains to me of strength becomes more
precious for what is lost. I have lost one ear,
but was never so alive to sweet sounds as now. My
sight is so far impaired that the brightness
in which nature was revealed to me in my youth is dimmed,
but I never looked on nature
with such pure joy as now. My limbs soon tire, but I
never felt it such a privilege to move
about in the open air, under the sky in sight of the
infinity of creation, as at this moment. I almost think that my simple food, eaten by rule, was never
relished so well. I am grateful
then for my earthly tabernacle, though it does creak and
shake not a little.
-William Ellery Channing
When grace combines with wrinkles, it is
admirable.
There is an indescribable light of dawn about intensely
happy old age. . . . The young person is handsome,
but the old, superb.
-Victor Hugo
Wisdom
doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing
does--except wrinkles.
It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if
the grapes were good in the first place.
-Abigail
van Buren
Parts
of the aging process are scary, of course, but the more we
know about them,
the less they need be. That is why I wish we were more
deliberate, in our early years,
to prepare for this condition. It would leave a lot of
us freed to enjoy the obvious
rewards of being old. . . . What is important is that our
dispassionate acceptance
of attrition be matched by a full use of everything that has
ever happened in all
the long wonderful-ghastly years to free a person's mind
from his or her body. . .
to use the experience, both great and evil, so that physical
annoyances are
surmountable in an alert and even mirthful appreciation of
life itself. -M.F.K.
Fisher
Do
not grow old, no matter how long you live.
Never cease to stand like curious children
before the Great Mystery into which we are born.
-Albert
Einstein
I
intend to go on with my life by living it, not by
buying into some notion that I no longer have the
potential to become still better. I refuse to
take seriously society's idea that at the arbitrary
age of 65 I am suddenly a lamp going out.
-Roger
S. Mills
Youth
is not a time of life--it is a state of mind. Nobody
grows old
by merely living a number of years; people grow old by
deserting their ideals.
Years may wrinkle your skin, but to give up enthusiasm
wrinkles your soul.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as
young as your
self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
In the central place of your heart there is a recording
chamber; so long as it
receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage--so
long are you young.
When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with
the snow
of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then--and only
then--are you grown old.
-Douglas
MacArthur
Up
to one's last breath, one may retain the simple joys of
childhood,
the poetic ecstasies of the young person, the enthusiasms
of maturity. Right to the end, one may intoxicate
one's spirit
with flowers, with beauty and with smiles.
-Eliphas
Levi
A
good old age can be the crown of all our life's experiences,
the masterwork of a lifetime. Behind us are years of
actions
and thoughts that developed us, changed us--and the
world--for
the better or the worse. We know in our inner selves
which
they had been and to what goal they have led.
-Helen Nearing
I
am old, yet I look at wise men and see that I am very young.
I look over those stars yonder, and into the myriads of the
aspirant and ordered souls, and see I am a stranger and a
youth
and have yet my spurs to win. Too ridiculous are these
airs of age. -Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Development
can indeed continue beyond childhood and youth,
beyond the seventies. It can continue until the very
end of life,
given purposes that challenge and use our human abilities. .
. .
In sum, our development does not necessarily end at any age.
We can continue to develop into our eighties, even to our
nineties. -Betty
Friedan
Winter
is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me
the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. . . .
For half a century I have been writing thoughts in prose,
verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and
song.
I have tried them all, but I feel I have not said a
thousandth part
of that which is within me. When I go down to the
grave,
I can say "I have finished my day's work,"
but I cannot say "I have finished my life's work."
-Victor Hugo
You’re
never too old to become younger.
-Mae West
A
human heart can never grow old if it takes a lively interest
in the pairing of birds,
the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of
autumn leaves. -Lydia Maria
Child
You just don’t make decisions about what
you’re going to be like
when you are old.I
know that I am making that decision right now.
Every time we perceive ourselves, others, life, the world
and God
in a certain way, we are deepening the habits that will take
over in
old age.Every
time I act on the insights that I am getting now I am
deciding my future and choosing to be a kindly or cynical
old man.Our
yesterdays lie heavily upon our todays and
our todays will lie heavily upon our tomorrows.
-John Powell
Some
people never seem to grow old. Always active in
thought,
always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable
to fogeyism. Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied,
settled,
yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is,
and are the first to find the best of what will be.
-William
Shakespeare
Each part of life has its own
pleasures. Each has its own abundant
harvest, to be garnered in season. We may grow old in
body,
but we need never grow old in mind and spirit. No one
is as old as
to think he or she cannot live one more year.
-Cicero
How
old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you was?
-Satchel Paige
Those who are of a calm and happy nature
will hardly feel the pressure of age.
-Plato
Physically,
we get older and then we die. Yet spiritually, whether
we go
backward or forward is a matter not of the body but of
consciousness. When
we think about age differently, then our experience of it
changes. We can be
physically older but emotionally and psychologically
younger. Some of us were
in a state of decay in our 20s and are in a state of
re-birth in our 60s or 70s.
King Solomon, who supposedly was the wisest of all men,
described his youth
as his winter and his advanced years as his summer. We
can be older than
we used to be yet feel much younger than we are.
-Marianne
Williamson
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