OLD AGE QUOTES VI
quotations about old age
The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
ERMA BOMBECK
Family: The Ties that Bind ... And Gag!
Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.
PHILIP ROTH
Everyman
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"
Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, mid-life for an elephant, and ancient for a quarter-miler, whose son now says, "Dad I just can't run the quarter with you anymore unless I bring something to read."
BILL COSBY
Time Flies
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
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
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
You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes & Brilliant Remarks
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
Age overtakes us all;
Our temples first; then on o'er cheek and chin,
Slowly and surely, creep the frosts of Time.
Up and do somewhat, ere thy limbs are sere.
THEOCRITUS
"The Love of Thyonichus"
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
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
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
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
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
As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls across our path; the realities of life seem less crude than of yore, they touch our senses less intimately, and they lose much of their poignancy.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young.
KARL LAGERFELD
The Telegraph, May 12, 2014
Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women