To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent – that is to triumph over old age.
To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.
The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
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 vigour. With such people the grey 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.
By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.
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.
What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind – the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship.
If youth but knew; if age but could.
Human life is a continuous thread which each of us spins to his own pattern, rich and complex in meaning. There are no natural knots in it. Yet knots form, nearly always in adolescence.
Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man’s life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.
It’s not that age brings childhood back again, Age merely shows what children we remain.
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.
Old age equalizes – we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
Old age is not a disease – it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.
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.
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.
To be able to look back on one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
Our days pass by, and are scored against us.
A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past life is to live twice.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.
There are two times in every man’s life when he is thoroughly happy; just after he has met his first love and just after he has parted from his last one.
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
Youth has no age.
Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.
An old man loved is winter with flowers.
The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the older man who will not laugh is a fool.
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you’re older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle – aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages.
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?
The old believe everything, the middle – aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.
