OLD AGE QUOTES VI
quotations about old age
Nobody tells you that old age is going to be s****y. It's a kind of conspiracy.
MIRIAM MARGOLYES
The Guardian, January 28, 2017
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
Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by thoughts of death.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete.
TANITH LEE
interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show
Youth is the season of receptivity, and should be devoted to acquirement; and manhood of power--that demands an earnest application. Old age is for revision.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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
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
The only real change in life comes with the consciousness of old age.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The greatest tragedy of old age is the tendency for the old to feel unneeded, unwanted, and of no use to anyone; the secret of happiness in the declining years is to remain interested in life, as active as possible, useful to others, busy, and forward looking.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
Book of Common Sense Etiquette
Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.
PHILIP ROTH
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
Amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young woman from real inclination has preferred an old man.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779
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
Well I say old age is no barrier to intimacy, to sexuality, to adulthood. We're often encouraged to talk about death and dying -- and that's important. But we should also talk about living.
NIEVES MURRAY
"Intimacy and Old Age", Illawarra Mercury, August 25, 2016
This is old age! A slow and sure decay!
A tott'ring edifice, crusted with mould,
Failing in strength and beauty ev'rywhere!
Its vaults, and noble arches, choked with weeds!
Its casements dark, and chambers thick with dust
Its pillars bowed, or prostrate on the ground!
C. B. LANGSTON
"Old Age"
There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
interview, Index Magazine, 1997
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
The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Science as culture misdirects the way in which old age is understood. Rather than valuing life in all its diversity, including its final phase, it leads to misguided devotion of resources to solving the problem of death. The focus on biological failure sets up a cultural construction of old age which leads to the low esteem in which it is currently held.
JOHN A. VINCENT
"Marketing Immortality", JSTOR Daily, February 2, 2017