OLD AGE QUOTES VI
quotations about old age
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
If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
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
The only real change in life comes with the consciousness of old age.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Growing old is no more than a bad habit a busy man has no time to form.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
interview, Index Magazine, 1997
All would live long, but none would be old.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1749
White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.
HONORE DE BALZAC
The Lily of the Valley
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
You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: "Holy Christ, whaddya know -- I'm still around!"
PAUL NEWMAN
The Independent, June 17, 2006
Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young.
KARL LAGERFELD
The Telegraph, May 12, 2014
A man in old age is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Oh dear, this living and eating and growing old; these doubts and aches in the back, and want of interest in the Moon and Roses... Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang "Auld Lang Syne" and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the summer stars through a blur of great, romantic tears?
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
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"
The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
IRVIN D. YALOM
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
The smile upon the old man's lips, like the last rays of the setting sun, pierces the heart with a sweet and sad emotion. There is still a ray, there is still a smile; but they may be the last.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine