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Quotations about age and wisdom

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Quotations about age and wisdom
March 06, 2019 Anniversary Wishes 1 comment

Some of the wittiest and most humorous quotations in the English Sir Norman Wisdom; "Old age isn't so bad when you consider the.

C.N. Douglas, comp.  Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical.  
 
 
  Good old age.
Genesis xv. 15.    
  Slow, consuming age.
Gray.    
  Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.
Shakespeare.    
  Few people know how to be old.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  Age either transfigures or petrified.
Marie Ebner-Eschenbach.    
  It is difficult to grow old gracefully.
Madame de Staël.    
  Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.
Shakespeare.    
  The clock of his age had struck fifty-eight.
Cellini.    
  An old man is twice a child.
Shakespeare.    
  When the age is in, the wit is out.
Shakespeare.    
  Mellowed by the stealing hours of time.
Shakespeare.    
  No wise man ever wished to be younger.
Swift.    
  Old age is an incurable disease.
Seneca.    
  The evening of life brings with it its lamps.
Joubert.    
  ’T is the sunset of life gives us mystical lore.
Campbell.    
  Age is suspicious, but is not itself often suspected.
Zimmermann.    
  Nor age so eat up my invention.
Shakespeare.    
  Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
Shakespeare.    
  O good gray head which all men knew.
Tennyson.    
  Age and want sit smiling at the gate.
Pope.    
 
 
  Thyself no more deceive, thy youth hath fled.
Petrarch.    
  The silver livery of advised age.
Shakespeare.    
  They say women and music should never be dated.
Goldsmith.    
  The Grecian ladies counted their age from their marriage, not their birth.
Homer.    
  As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.
Lady Montagu.    
  Age  *  *  *  is is a matter of feeling, not of years.
George William Curtis.    
        Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Edmund Waller.    
  His cheek the map of days outworn.
Shakespeare.    
  Time’s chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  Age too, shines out, and garrulous recounts the feats of youth.
Thomson.    
  Have a care lest the wrinkles in the face extend to the heart.
Marguerite de Valois.    
  White hairs are the crests of foam which cover the sea after the tempest.
Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania.    
  What makes old age so sad is, not that our joys, but that our hopes, cease.
Richter.    
  Old age is a tyrant, which forbids the pleasures of youth on pain of death.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  We are to seek wisdom and understanding only in the length of days.
Robert Hall.    
  The silver-leaved birch retains in its old age a soft bark; there are some such men.
Auerbach.    
  Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.
Shakespeare.    
  Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek.
Shakespeare.    
  The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse as we grow old.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  Every man desires to live long; but, no man would be old.
Swift.    
  His hair just grizzled as in a green old age.
Dryden.    
  Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb.
Byron.    
  Years do not make sages; they only make old men.
Madame Swetchine.    
  As the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Longfellow.    
  The enthusiasm of old men is singularly like that of infancy.
Gerard de Nerval.    
  As we grow old we become more foolish and more wise.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  Nature, as it grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.
Shakespeare.    
  We do not count a man’s years until he has nothing else to count.
Emerson.    
  As you are old and reverend, you should he wise.
Emerson.    
  An old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.
Wordsworth.    
  A youthful age is desirable, but aged youth is troublesome and grievous.
Chilo.    
  How many persons fancy they have experience simply because they have grown old!
Stanislaus.    
  For my own part, I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so.
Cicero.    
  As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.
Madame Swetchine.    
  We see time’s furrows on another’s brow; how few themselves, in that just mirror, see!
Young.    
  What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows, our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Young.    
  Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
Johnson.    
  At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
Grattan.    
        To the old, long life and treasure;
To the young, all health and pleasure.
Ben Jonson.    
        The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.
Browning.    
  I love everything that’s old,—old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
Goldsmith.    
  Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.
Victor Hugo.    
  To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.
Hazlitt.    
  Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay.
Holmes.    
  Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living.
Goldsmith.    
  When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees.
Young.    
        You see me here,—a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
Shakespeare.    
  Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
Genesis xv. 15.    
  Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  Age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible.
Johnson.    
  As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Shakespeare.    
  Age bears away with it all things, even the powers of the mind.
Virgil.    
  Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye.
Shakespeare.    
  These are the effects of doting age,—vain doubts and idle cares and overcaution.
Dryden.    
        Borne on the swift, tho’ silent wings of time,
Old age comes on apace, to ravage all the clime.
Beattie.    
  Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.
Mrs. L. M. Child.    
  A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.
Steele.    
        Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.
Longfellow.    
  Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and aid authors to read.
Bacon.    
  Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.
Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield).    
        Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Pope.    
  Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
Shakespeare.    
  Age is a tyrant, who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth.
La Rochefoucauld.    
  A time there is when like a thrice-told tale long-rifled life of sweets can yield no more.
Young.    
  Age makes us not childish, as some say; it finds us still true children.
Goethe.    
        Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway,
The passion and infirmity of age.
Frowde.    
  Age is frequently beautiful, wisdom appearing like an aftermath.
Beaconsfield.    
  Old age has deformities enough of its own; do not add to it the deformity of vice.
Cato.    
        Boys must not have th’ ambitious care of men,
Nor men the weak anxieties of age.
Horace.    
  Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the light of a soft moon, silvering over the evening of life.
Richter.    
        The sunshine falls, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.
Longfellow.    
  The most dangerous weakness of old people who have been amiable is to forget they are no longer so.
La Rochefoucauld.    
                        What should we speak of
When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December.
Shakespeare.    
          When he’s forsaken,
  Wither’d and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
Hood.    
  Beauty and ugliness disappear equally under the wrinkles of age; one is lost in them; the other hidden.
J. Petit-Senn.    
  There is nothing more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to produce as a proof that he has lived long except his years.
Seneca.    
  Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters.
Emerson.    
        And the bright faces of my young companions
Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.
Longfellow.    
  Tell me what you find better, or more honorable than age. Is not wisdom entailed upon it? Take the pre-eminence of it in everything; in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
Shakerly Marmion.    
  Most long lives resemble those threads of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged, scarce visible pathways of some worm from his cradle to his grave.
Lowell.    
  Time has laid his hand upon my heart gently, not smiting it; but as a harper lays his open palm upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
Longfellow.    
  The tendency of old age, say the physiologists, is to form bone. It is as rare as it is pleasant, to meet with an old man whose opinions are not ossified.
J. F. Boyse.    
  There are three classes into which all the women past seventy years of age, that ever I knew, were to be divided: 1. That dear old soul; 2. That old woman; 3. That old witch.
Coleridge.    
  O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.
Shakespeare.    
  Last scene of all, that ends this strange, eventful history, is second childishness, and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Shakespeare.    
        ’Tis the sunset of life gives us mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
Campbell.    
  Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like a shock of corn cometh in his season.
Job v. 26.    
  I feel I am growing old for want of somebody to tell me that I am looking as young as ever. Charming falsehood! There is a vast deal of vial air in loving words.
Landor.    
  The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
Chesterfield.    
        On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press’d its signet sage.
Scott.    
                                At your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment.
Shakespeare.    
  We hope to grow old and we dread old age; that is to say, we love life and we flee from death.
La Bruyère.    
  The tree that bears no fruit deserves no name; the man of wisdom is the man of years.
Young.    
  We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own defects.
Goethe.    
  It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.
Goethe.    
          Set is the sun of my years;
And over a few poor ashes,
  I sit in my darkness and tears.
Gerald Massey.    
                        And his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Shakespeare.    
          How far the gulf-stream of our youth
May flow into the Arctic region of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
Longfellow.    
  Some one has said of a fine and honorable old age, that it was the childhood of immortality.
Pindar.    
  When a noble life has, prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
Madame de Staël.    
  The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.
H. W. Shaw.    
  There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
Dr. Johnson.    
  In an aged man appears ripeness of wisdom: it is the oldest sandal-tree which emits the most fragrance.
Sataka.    
  Old men’s lives are lengthened shadows; their evening sun falls coldly on the earth, but the shadows all point to the morning.
Richter.    
  Age and youth look upon life from the opposite ends of the telescope; it is exceedingly long, it is exceedingly short.
Beecher.    
  Old age was naturally more honored in times when people could not know much more than what they had seen.
Joubert.    
  Only when the sap is dried up, only when age comes on, does the sun shine in vain for man and for the tree.
Bulwer-Lytton.    
  Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
George MacDonald.    
  The Disappointment of Manhood succeeds to the delusion of Youth; let us hope that the heritage of Old Age is not Despair.
Disraeli.    
        For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.
Shakespeare.    
  That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.
Cicero.    
  Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas! the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run.
Thackeray.    
  An aged Christian, with the snow of time on his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest heaven.
Chapin.    
  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.    
        In age to wish for youth is full as vain
As for a youth to turn a child again.
Denham.    
  The surest sign of age is loneliness. While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot be old, whatever his years may be.
Alcott.    
  Old age takes from the man of intellect no qualities save those that are useless to wisdom.
Joubert.    
        Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and gray.
Scott.    
        Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage,
Till pitying Nature signs the last release,
And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.
Dr. Johnson.    
                        *  *  *  Years steal
Fire from the mind, as vigor from the limb;
And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
Byron.    
  Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world, and the old man lives among graves.
Richter.    
  Up to forty a woman has only forty springs in her heart. After that age she has only forty winters.
Arsène Houssaye.    
  When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings.
Swift.    
  We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.
Emerson.    
        Down his neck his reverend lockes
  In comelye curles did wave;
And on his aged temples grewe
  The blossomes of the grave.
Old Ballad.    
  Depend upon it, a man never experiences such pleasure or grief after fourteen years as he does before, unless in some cases, in his first love-making, when the sensation is new to him.
Charles Kingsley.    
  To resist with success the frigidity of old age, one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart; to keep these in parallel vigor, one must exercise, study, and love.
Bonstetten.    
  As sailing into port is a happier thing than the voyage, so is age happier than youth; that is, when the voyage from youth is made with Christ at the helm.
Rev. J. Pulsford.    
        Thus fares it still in our decay,
  And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
  Than what it leaves behind.
Wordsworth.    
  The vine produces more grapes when it is young, but better grapes for wine when it is old, because its juices are more perfectly concocted.
Bacon.    
        My days are in the yellow leaf;
  The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
  Are mine alone!
Byron.    
  Natures that have much heat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years.
Bacon.    
        Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain—
Take them and give me my childhood again!
Elizabeth Akers Allen.    
  The vices of old age have the stiffness of it, too; and as it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater.
South.    
  I am much beholden to old age, which has increased my eagerness for conversation in proportion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and thirst.
Tully.    
  Throughout the whole vegetable, sensible, and rational world, whatever makes progress towards maturity, as soon as it has passed that point, begins to verge towards decay.
Blair.    
  He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.
Addison.    
  Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.
Montaigne.    
        So life’s year begins and closes;
  Days, though short’ning, still can shine;
What though youth gave love and roses,
  Age still leaves us friends and wine.
Moore.    
        Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
Yet hath my night of life some memory.
Shakespeare.    
                    For 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.
Longfellow.    
  Though sinking in decrepit age, he prematurely falls whose memory records no benefit conferred on him by man. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.
Sheridan.    
  Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,—that of being judged by their peers.
Goethe.    
        Remote from cities liv’d a Swain,
Unvex’d with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver’d o’er with age,
And long experience made him sage.
Gay.    
  Our life much resembles wine: when there is only a little remaining, it becomes vinegar; for all the ills of human nature crowd to old age as if it were a workshop.
Antiphanes.    
  Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it; and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations.
Madame Swetchine.    
        O, roses for the flush of youth,
And laurel for the perfect prime;
But pluck an ivy branch for me
Grown old before my time.
Christina G. Rossetti.    
        Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o’er,
Till memory lends her light no more.
Scott.    
  Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day.
Daniel Webster.    
  There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures nor sensible of doing them to others.
Sir W. Temple.    
  The mental powers acquire their full robustness when the cheek loses its ruddy hue, and the limbs their elastic step; and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student’s lamp burning far into the silent night.
Dr. Guthrie.    
  The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close round us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow.
Landor.    
  Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
Richter.    
  A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth; therefore instead of its introducing dismal and melancholy prospects of decay, it should give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
Palmer.    
  Age and sufferings had already marked out the first incisions for death, so that he required but little effort to cut her down; for it is with men as with trees, they are notched long before felling, that their life-sap may flow out.
Richter.    
  Old age is a lease nature only signs as a particular favor, and it may be, to one only in the space of two or three ages; and then with a pass to boot, to carry him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way of his long career.
Montaigne.    
        What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for Beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes; but not this alone.
Matthew Arnold.    
  Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.
Richter.    
  We should provide for our age, in order that our age may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from the meditation of the nest. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave!
Bulwer-Lytton.    
        Alike all ages; dames of ancient days
Have led their children thro’ the mirthful maze.
And the gay grandsire, skill’d in gestic lore,
Has frisk’d beneath the burthen of threescore.
Goldsmith.    
        Fate seem’d to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Dryden.    
  One’s age should be tranquil, as one’s childhood should be playful; hard work, at either extremity of human existence, seems to me out of place; the morning and the evening should be alike cool and peaceful; at midday the sun may burn, and men may labor under it.
Dr. Arnold.    
        O blest retirement! friend to life’s decline—
Retreats from care, that never must be mine
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease.
Goldsmith.    
  I think that to have known one good old man—one man, who, through the chances and mischances of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm-branch, waving all discords into peace—helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each other more than many sermons.
G. W. Curtis.    
  I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.
Longfellow.    
        Come forth, old man,—thy daughter’s side
  Is now the fitting place for thee:
When time has quell’d the oak’s bold pride,
The youthful tendril yet may hide.
  The ruins of the parent tree.
Scott.    
        So may’st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother’s lap, or be with ease
Gather’d, not harshly pluck’d, for death mature.
Milton.    
        Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You’ve play’d, and lov’d, and ate, and drank your fill;
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage.
Pope.    
        What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
  What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life’s page,
  And be alone on earth as I am now.
Byron.    
  Vanity in an old man is charming. It is a proof of an open nature. Eighty winters have not frozen him up, or taught him concealments. In a young person it is simply allowable; we do not expect him to be above it.
Bovee.    
  The smile upon the old man’s lip, 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.    
  Is it that Nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments, and as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil?
Goldsmith.    
  If the memory is more flexible in childhood, it is more tenacious in mature age; if childhood has sometimes the memory of words, old age has that of things, which impress themselves according to the clearness of the conception of the thought which we wish to retain.
De Bonstetten.    
        An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful Day benevolence endears,
Whose Night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favourite as the general friend:
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?
Dr. Johnson.    
  True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,—it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise.
Whipple.    
  Age, when it does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally returns to the milky disposition of infancy. Time has the same effect upon the mind as on the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more conspicuous from the others retiring.
Lady Montagu.    
  Some persons resemble certain trees, such as the nut, which flowers in February and ripens its fruit in September; or the juniper and the arbutus; which take a whole year or more to perfect their fruit; and others, the cherry, which takes between two and three months.
Whately.    
  Old age brings us to know the value of the blessings which we have enjoyed, and it brings us also to a very thankful perception of those which yet remain. Is a man advanced in life? The ease of a single day, the rest of a single night, are gifts which may be subjects of gratitude to God.
Paley.    
  Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.
Madame Swetchine.    
  Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may still remain for us in old age. The last draught which a kind Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may, as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.
W. A. Newman.    
        Behold where age’s wretched victim lies,
See his head trembling, and his half clos’d eyes,
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves;
To broken sleep his remnant sense he gives,
And only by his pains, awaking, finds he lives.
Prior.    
        The course of my long life hath reached at last,
In fragile bark o’er a tempestuous sea,
The common harbor, where must rendered be,
Account of all the actions of the past.
Longfellow.    
        Weak withering age no rigid law forbids,
With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm,
The sapless habit daily to bedew,
And give the hesitating wheels of life
Gliblier to play.
John Armstrong.    
  Old age likes to dwell in the recollections of the past, and, mistaking the speedy march of years, often is inclined to take the prudence of the winter time far a fit wisdom of midsummer days. Manhood is bent to the passing cares of the passing moment, and holds so closely to his eyes the sheet of “to-day,” that it screens the “to-morrow” from his sight.
Kossuth.    
  There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth.
Hazlitt.    
        Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age;
With lenient arts extend a mother’s breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye!
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.
Pope.    
        Old age is courteous—no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, “Walk in, sir, pray!”
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed,
And then they cry, “A cool one, indeed.”
Goethe.    
        I’m growing fonder of my staff;
I’m growing dimmer in the eyes;
I’m growing fainter in my laugh;
I’m growing deeper in my sighs;
I’m growing careless of my dress;
I’m growing frugal of my gold;
I’m growing wise; I’m growing,—yes,—
I’m growing old.
Saxe.    
        The careful cold hath nipt my rugged rind,
  And in my face deep furrows eld hath plight;
My head bespren with hoary frost I find,
  And by mine eye the crow his claw doth bright;
Delight is laid abed, and pleasure past;
  No sun now shines, clouds have all overcast.
Spenser.    
  Can man be so age-stricken that no faintest sunshine of his youth may revisit him once a year? It is impossible. The moss on our time-worn mansion brightens into beauty; the good old pastor, who once dwelt here, renewed his prime and regained his boyhood in the genial breeze of his ninetieth spring. Alas for the worn and heavy soul, if, whether in youth or age, it has outlived its privilege of springtime sprightliness!
Hawthorne.    
        Old age doth in sharp pains abound;
  We are belabored by the gout,
Our blindness is a dark profound,
  Our deafness each one laughs about.
Then reason’s light with falling ray
  Doth but a trembling flicker cast.
Honor to age, ye children pay!
  Alas! my fifty years are past!
Béranger.    
                        My way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Shakespeare.    
                        His silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds;
It shall be said his judgment rul’d our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.
Shakespeare.    
                    Those old fellows have
Their ingratitude in them hereditary;
Their blood is caked, ’tis cold, it seldom flows;
’Tis lack of kindly warmth, they are not kind,
And nature, as it grows toward earth,
Is fashion’d for the journey—dull and heavy.
Shakespeare.    
  It is noticeable how intuitively in age we go back with strange fondness to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn of youth. If we never cared for little children before, we delight to see them roll in the grass over which we hobble on crutches. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, care-worn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn, and feel most delight in the returning spring.
Bulwer-Lytton.    
 



Quotations about wisdom, from The Quote Garden. Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Age Sayings and Quotes

quotations about age and wisdom

If you want to know how to age successfully, your best bet is to ask older adults who've figured out the secrets. These 15 wise individuals, all of whom lived well into their later years, provide a range of witty, wise, and even practical tips for finding fulfillment, no matter what your age.

 "I had to wait 110 years to become famous.  I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible."  Jeanne Louise Calment  (1875-1997)

The oldest documented living human, this French woman had all her wits about her when she reached the "super-centenarian" age of 110. With her jaunty smile, Calment charmed the world with her upbeat attitude toward aging and life.

"You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred."  Woody Allen (1935- )

Unfortunately, this bon mot is somewhat true, though some of the longest-living individuals (including Calment) engaged in their share of bad habits. However, you can control your life span to the extent that you can avoid some of the unhealthy behaviors that cause people to die before reaching old age.

"Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar." John Glenn (1921-)

As the oldest person to board a U.S. Space Shuttle at age 77, Senator John Glenn exemplified the view that we shouldn't let age define us. The calendar is a useful way to let you know the date, but if you let yourself be hemmed in by your chronological age, you may lock yourself out of potentially valuable opportunities.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was*?" Satchel Paige (1906-1982)

Along the same lines as John Glenn's quote is that of this baseball legend who continued his successful career well into his 60s. We are so obsessed with age, Paige implies, that we allow it to define our identities. Break out of the mental set that makes you think of your age first, and your identity second. 

*thank you to a reader who pointed out the quote may actually say "were," but it's also listed as "are," and as I have written here, "was."

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty." Coco Chanel (1983-1971)

Before the age of botox, this fashion icon wisely noted that the expressions you characteristically show will lead you to develop the lines that engrave your face as you get older. At 20, you have none of these lines, but by 50 your typical expression will have carved itself into your forehead and around your eyes and mouth. Smile and your facial wrinkles will have a friendlier feel.

"Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness." Edward Stanley (1826-1893)

Do you ever feel that you just don't have enough time to work out? Do you get to work early and stay late at the office, only to convince yourself that there are just not enough hours in the day to get to the gym? Back in the mid-1800s, this British stateman advocated, well ahead of his time, for the importance to health of getting regular physical activity. He didn't have the data to support this argument that we have now about the value of exercise, but his astute observation would withstand the most rigorous scientific test about the benefits of working out on a regular basis.

"I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don't have to." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Einstein seemed to have the ability to produce more witticisms than the average physicist.  In this case, he expresses the sentiment that many older adults seem to feel, as evidenced by research showing that older adults have lower scores on a measure called "self-discipline." By the time they reach their later years, individuals feel better able to express themselves rather than being hemmed in by society's proscriptions.

"Do not try to live forever, you will not succeed." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

This is somewhat of a discouraging message but not if you accept the fact that there are limits on longevity, meaning that life has finite limits. Of course, Shaw himself lived to a ripe old age.  However, by recognizing that no one can live forever, you can avail yourself of the life you have, and enjoy it as much as possible.

"By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it." George Burns (1896-1996)

The ultimate wise old man, George Burns (who played "God" in case you don't remember) expresses an observation that, although probably unknown to him, has its basis in empirical data about aging and memory. Researchers believe that one of the challenges to memory that older adults face is the ability to retrieve the information they have already acquired. With this knowledge, you can avail yourself of memory strategies that will allow you to maximize the ability to store and retrieve the memories you strive to retain.

"The wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind." William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

There are several layers of wisdom embedded in this quote. One is that as people get older, their wisdom is expressed by focusing on what is most important. Second, those adults who do focus on loss will be less able to maximize their mental powers, even in areas that traditionally seem vulnerable to the effects of aging. Third, by concentrating on your strengths rather than your weaknesses, your more positive mental set will allow you to  take advantage of your mental powers, even if they're not quite what they were when you were younger.

"He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden." Plato (427-346 B.C.)

This wise observation from Plato harkens back to the findings of "Big Five" researchers Costa and McCrae, who observed that the most discontented younger adults were the ones most likely to experience the so-called "midlife crisis" in their 40s. Although personality change is possible at any time throughout life, people high on the trait of neuroticism seem to have disadvantages in adapting to the challenges of midlife and beyond.

"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don't care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all." Ann Landers (1918-2002)

The guru of advice columns (along with her twin sister, Abigail Von Buren), Ann Landers reminds us that as people get older, they move away from the egocentric concerns of youth to the more realistic perceptions of midlife and older adults, who realize that they are not the center of the universe.  As a result, older adults are free to do what they want, not constrained by what they construe to be the opinions of others (who themselves are thinking only about themselves).

"Old age hath yet his honour and his toil." Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

I like this quote as an opening to my lecture on aging and work. Although we tend to think of older adults as less productive employees than their younger counterparts, the opposite is true. From the age of 55 and onwards, workers are better employees in terms of their reliability and even, in many vocational fields, of productivity. We might wish that aging carried with it more "honour" than it does in a society that seems to value youth, but as Tennyson pointed out, there are many reasons that it should.

"Because I could not stop for death – He kindly stopped for me." Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson's quotes are some of the most quotable in all of psychology, and this is no exception. The idea that death can be "kind" fits with what experts in the field of death and dying call the "tame" view of death. It's not that death steals us of life, but that it brings us to a beneficent ending. 

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be." Robert Browning (1812-1889)

This very inspiring characterization of old age fits with the concept of "successful aging," provides the view that it is possible to enjoy your later years in a way that exceeds your expectations.

"Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength." Betty Friedan (1921-2006)

One of the founders of the feminist movement, Betty Friedan continued to inspire women throughout her life, writing about her experiences with aging in The Fountain of Age. In this quote, Friedan captures the concept of successful aging. Let's redefine later life as a time of growth instead of inevitable decline.

By sharing these wise, witty, and insightful quotes, I hope I've inspired you to think more positively about your own aging and to gain a better perspective on ways to live as productively and as long as you can.

Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging.Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, to ask further questions about this posting, or to share your own tricks.

Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. 2012

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Quotes to Make You Feel Better About Getting Older

quotations about age and wisdom

When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see. (Chinua Achebe)

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I expect to retire to a fine-grained heaven where the temperatures are always consistent, where the images slide before one's eyes in a continual cascade of form and meaning. (Ansel Adams)

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Age acquires no value save through thought and discipline. (James Truslow Adams)

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He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young. (Joseph Addison)

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But time growing old teaches all things. (Aeschylus)

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To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent – that is to triumph over old age. (Thomas Bailey Aldrich)

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The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. (Muhammad Ali)

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You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. (Woody Allen)

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Of course now that I am retired I see it from a totally different perspective, the bad days just don't look so bad to me, and I try to share that with Michael. (Mario Andretti)

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The end of all my labors has come. All that I have written appears to me as much straw after the things that have been revealed to me. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

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- b.ca. 446 BC d.ca. 386 BC...
The old are in a second childhood. (Aristophanes)

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Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them. (Louis Armstrong)

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As one gets older, it happens that in the morning one fails to remember the airplane trip to be taken in a few hours or the lecture scheduled for the afternoon. (Rudolf Arnheim)

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-ca.AD 400...
Now that I am old and infirm I fear I shall no more be able to roam among the beautiful mountains... I can only paint my pictures and spread my colour over the cloud-topped mountain to transmit for future ages the hidden meaning which lies beyond all description in words. (Chinese Artist)

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The best way to judge a life is to ask yourself, 'Did I make the best use of the time I had?' (Arthur Ashe)

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Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. (Herbert Henry Asquith)

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I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity... I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there. (Fred Astaire)

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Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. (Margaret Atwood)

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Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long time. (Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber)

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You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long. (Marcus Aurelius)

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Age breeds caution and a yearning for security. Youth invites risk and challenge. As we grow older it becomes important to be able to balance our sensibilities with our curiosities. (Elizabeth Azzolina)

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Always I'm feeling, 'You're never going to work again.' That's going to happen one day, but I hope I'm not alive. (Lauren Bacall)

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Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon)

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How disappointing to discover we aren't going to be young and strong and live forever... The challenge and the fascination of artistic creation is the best distraction in the world... we're the lucky ones. (Janet Badger)

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People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately. (Russell Baker)

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The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. (Lucille Ball)

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The only thing I regret about my past life is the length of it. If I had my past life over again I'd make all the same mistakes – only sooner. (Tallulah Bankhead)

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Neither age, intelligence, nor acquired wisdom alone guarantees a long life. However, only an acquired wisdom that comes with age allows you to see what benefits there may be in being stupid and dying young. (Che Baraka)

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Painting is almost like a religious experience, which should go on and on. Age just gives you the freedom to do some things you've never done before. Great work can come at any stage of your life. (Will Barnet)

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A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. (John Barrymore)

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I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. (Bernard Baruch)

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- interview with Carol Crenna, December 15, 2012...
I take two walks up hills each day, and bike ride each morning. I also have an exercise bike to increase my heart rate. My wife and I have been going to a personal trainer for weights and balance twice a week for 10 years. My balance has improved tremendously and the weights decrease my age. I only feel 52, not 82. (Robert Bateman)

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When you get to be my age, you begin to count how many Mays you have left - the best time of year for flowers and birds in North America. (Robert Bateman)

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The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it. (Mary Catherine Bateson)

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It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny. (Simone de Beauvoir)

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We grow neither better nor worse as we grow old, but more like ourselves. (May Lamberton Becker)

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For some reason I can't explain, artists and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age. (Joshua Bell)

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I'm glad I haven't lived in vain. (Saul Bellow)

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Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk. (Robert Benchley)

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Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. (Jack Benny)

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When you get to my age life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory. (Arthur Christopher Benson)

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A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die. (Bernard Berenson)

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The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying. (John Berger)

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I hope I never get so old I get religious. (Ingmar Bergman)

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When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about. (Ingmar Bergman)

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I don't worry about it because we are all growing old. If I were the only one I would worry. But we're all in the same boat, and all of my friends are coming with me. We all go toward old age. How many years left we don't know. We just have to accept it. (Ingrid Bergman)

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When you're young, you say what you feel. When you're adult, you speak what you think. When you grow old, you listen to what nature says. (Toba Beta)

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longevity, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death. (Ambrose Bierce)

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age, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit. (Ambrose Bierce)

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-when asked, at age 97, at what age the sex drive goes...
You'll have to ask somebody older than me. (Eubie Blake)

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I know a lot of men who are healthier at age fifty than they have ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone. (Robert Bly)

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Age has given me a serenity, and an understanding of who I am and what my limits are. (Barbara Boldt)

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To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart – and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love. (Karl von Bonstetten)

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I don't mind growing old. I'm just not used to it. (Victor Borge)

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- at age 80...
I work more now perhaps because I know that there is so little time left. (Fernando Botero)

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I often think about death, and it saddens me to leave this world and not be able to paint more. I love it so much. (Fernando Botero)

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All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved. (Elizabeth Bowen)

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As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left? (David Bowie)

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With age, art and life become one. (Georges Braque)

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The older you get, the fewer things it seems too late to do. (Robert Brault)

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Looking back you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life - and it was you. It is not too late to find that person again. (Robert Brault)

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The comic page is dying; I didn't want to go with it. (Berkely Breathed)

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People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart. (Bertolt Brecht)

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As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things. (Po Bronson)

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Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'tis all that I implore: In life and death a chainless soul, with courage to endure. (Emily Bronte)

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I'm happy to report that my inner child is still ageless. (James Broughton)

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I figure I'm still good for painting until 95 or thereabouts. (Bern Will Brown)

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I'm twice as old, but I feel good. (James Brown)

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You know you're old when you've lost all your marvels. (Merry Browne)

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Therefore I summon age / To grant youth's heritage. (Robert Browning)

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What Youth deemed crystal, / Age finds out was dew. (Robert Browning)

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Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made. (Robert Browning)

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What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold. (Robert Browning)

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To be old can be glorious if one has not unlearned how to begin. (Martin Buber)

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This is a wonderful way to celebrate an 80th birthday. I wanted to be 65 again, but they wouldn't let me - Homeland Security. (Art Buchwald)

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I just don't want to die the same day Castro dies. (Art Buchwald)

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Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked. (Pearl S. Buck)

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It is not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart. (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton)

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Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone. (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton)

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As an artist grows older, he has to fight disillusionment and learn to establish the same relation to nature as an adult, as he had when a child. (Charles Burchfield)

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This is an adventure. I love what we do. The day before I die, I want a painting half finished on the easel. The day I die, I want to yearn to finish it. (John Burk)

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The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth. (Edmund Burke)

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But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment. (Fanny Burney)

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Retire? I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the only one left. (George Burns)

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By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it. (George Burns)

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At my age flowers scare me. (George Burns)

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Old guys can still do fun things. (George H.W. Bush)

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Aging's alright - better than the alternative, which is not being here. (George H.W. Bush)

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- b.1835 d.1902...
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it. (Samuel Butler, novelist)

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Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances. (Samuel Butler, novelist)

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Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened when he was young. (Augustus Caesar)

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As a white candle / In a holy place, / So is the beauty / Of an aged face. (Joseph Campbell)

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- Lochiel's Warning, 1801
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, / And coming events cast their shadows before. (Thomas Campbell)

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The more I produce, the less I am certain. On the road along which the artist walks, night falls ever more densely. Finally, he dies blind. (Albert Camus)

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Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time. (George Carlin)

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It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five. (Thomas Carlyle)

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Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us. (Thomas Carlyle)

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I would like to continue being radical. As you get older, some of the world catches up and it's passed you. In the '60s you were on the crest of a wave because you were part of the wave. I don't want be a stick in the mud and do the same thing as I did last year, I want to do something different and see what happens. (Anthony Caro)

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Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs. (Emily Carr)

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It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash. (Emily Carr)

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Every time I think that I'm getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens. (Lillian Carter)

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Middle age is when a guy keeps turning off lights for economical rather than romantic reasons. (Lillian Carter)

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An old man's memories, like his bones, grow sharp with age and show their true shapes. (Joyce Cary)

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To retire is the beginning of death. (Pablo Casals)

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- at age 95...
I am perhaps the oldest musician in the world. I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life, and to say things to the world that are true. (Pablo Casals)

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Of course, I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years. (Pablo Casals)

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- Journey to the End of the Night...
Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? (Louis-Ferdinand Celine)

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I am old and ill, and I have sworn to die painting. (Paul Cezanne)

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I am a child who is getting on. (Marc Chagall)

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Youth is something very new: Twenty years ago no one mentioned it. (Coco Chanel)

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- All Fools, act 5, sc.1 (1605)...
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. (George Chapman)

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Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

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Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically - like you were taking out my appendix. (Ray Charles)

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Life is very short... but I would like to live four times and if I could, I would set out to do no other things than I am seeking now to do. (William Merritt Chase)

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Aging isn't that bad if you consider the alternatives. (Maurice Chevalier)

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The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years. Most people believe that aging is universal but there are biological organisms that never age. (Deepak Chopra)

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Good gracious! What there is to admire and how little time there is to see it in! For the first time one begins to envy Methuselah. (Winston Churchill)

98. Tell me what you find better, or more honorable than age. Is not wisdom entailed upon it? Take the pre-eminence of it in everything; in an old friend, in old .

New study confirms adage that with age comes wisdom

quotations about age and wisdom

Looking for inspirational birthday quotes?

It is always fun to celebrate birthdays, as well as to think about the many things that have been said about or that relate to them. Aside from getting wiser, one can delight in good food and good company.

Here are some awesome birthday quotes to liven up your big day, and perhaps even share with family and friends.

Famous Birthday Quotes Celebrating Life

Since first reading Dr. Seuss, my favorite birthday quote has been:

1.) “Today you are You; that is truer than true.

There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”  – Dr. Seuss

Getting older (and hopefully wiser), we face old age, our senior years. Perhaps Emily Dickinson has the right idea:

2.) “We turn not older with years, but newer every day” – Emily Dickinson

Sam Hagar reinforced this idea saying:

3.) “Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new.” – Sam Hagar

Can we live with that idea? Here’s what I always say:

4.) “Wow, thank you Lord for another great chance to make a difference.”

Yes, I am grateful that I’m still alive. But life isn’t forever, so remember:

5.) “Live as if you were to die tomorrow.

Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Henry Ford agreed:

6.) “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80.

Anyone who keeps learning stays young.

The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young”. – Henry Ford

Band leader, Les Brown emphasized:

7.) “You’re never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – Les Brown

George Eliot said:

8.) “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

While I was still in school, I had to read writings by ancient philosophers. I never thought they were relevant to me. As another birthday approaches, I’ve looked at some of those words of wisdom, re-evaluating their relevance.

Perhaps they are things that I’ve learned to live by, to accept – and yes – use as birthday quotes:

9.) “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to

give ourselves the gift of living well,” – Voltaire

A great birthday quote by William Shakespeare’s is:

10.) “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” – William Shakespeare

Inspirational Birthday Quotes and Sayings

Mark Twain agreed,

11.) “Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.” – Mark Twain

Certainly some good things to remember as we celebrate birthdays! Samuel Ullman said:

12.) “Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” – Samuel Ullman

At birthday gatherings you also might also want to quote:

13.) “Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words,” – Plautus

14.) “Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself,

to become what he potentially is,” – E. Fromm

15.) “Age is opportunity no less than youth itself,” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

16.) “Happiness is when what you think, what you say,

and what you do are in harmony,” – Mahatma Gandhi

Or you might hear:

17.) “I’m like a fine wine. They don’t bring me out very much

But, I am well preserved,” – Rose Kennedy

18.) “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,

But beautiful old people are works of art,” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Of course in discussing getting older, other pearls of wisdom are shared:

19.) “The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune,” – English Proverb

20.) “None are as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm,” – Henry David Thoreau

Birthday Quotes and sayings to uplift you

21.) “It’s not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old,

They grow old because they stop pursuing dreams,” – Gabriel G. Marquez

Another great birthday quote, this one by a comedian is:

22.) “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter.

If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter,” – Jack Benny

Another by George Burns is,

23.) “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” – George Burns

With laughter, Bob Hope said,

24.) “You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” – Bob Hope

Who would want to fix things?

25.) “If we could be twice young and twice old,

we could correct all our mistakes,” – Euripides

For those with a strong belief in God:

26.) “Our life is a gift from the Creator. Your gift back to the Creator is what you do with your life,” – Billy Mills

Hearts are always mentioned with birthdays:

27.) “Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty –

They merely move it from their faces into their hearts,” – Martin Buxbaum

28.) “The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious,” – Martin Luther
Some U.S. Presidents have made some birthday quotes:

29.) “Be sure you put your feet in the right place,
then stand firm,” – Lincoln

30.) “Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Lincoln

Happy Birthday Quotes that will make your day

31.) “Let us seek the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.

Let us accept our own responsibility for the future,” – Kennedy

Words of wisdom for aging from Confucius:

32.) “Study the past if you would define the future!”

33.) “It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, so long as you don’t stop.”

34.) “Choose a job you love.You will never have to work a day in your life.”

35.) “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

As we grow older, may we remember these wise quotes:

35.) “It is not the strongest of the species that survive
But the one most responsive to change,” – Darwin

36.) “It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain a thought without accepting it,” – Aristotle

37.) “Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving,” – Einstein

38.) “Obstacles are those frightful things you see
when you take your eyes off the goal,” – Henry Ford

39.) “Don’t celebrate how old you are,
celebrate the years you survived.” – Touaxia Vang

40.) “Don’t anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen,” – Ben Franklin

Happy Birthday Quotes and Wishes to make you strong

41.) “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – C.S. Lewis

42.) “Count your age by friends, not years, your life by smiles, not tears.” – John Lennon

43.) “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – Tolkien

So, as we all age – day by day, and as I pray I get to reach 70 in a couple of years, I often repeat this quote:

44.) “I don’t mind getting older; it’s a privilege denied to so many!” ― Chris Geiger, ‘The Cancer Survivors Club’

45.) “A birthday is the anniversary of your birth. It’s the time most of us reflect over the past year and what we hope for in the coming year.” – Claudia T Hudson

46.) “Today is the oldest you have been, and the youngest you will ever be. Make the most of it!” – Nicky Gumbel

47.) “There are two attitudes you can have when it comes to your birthday:
1. be thankful you have lived another year.
or, 2. complain about being a year older.” – Catherine Pulsifer

48.) “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” – Cherokee Expression

49.) “Your age isn’t you. Use today to feel your best, celebrate and be your very happiest.” – M. Rivers

50.) “A birth-date is a reminder to celebrate the life as well as to update the life.” – Amit Kalantri

More birthday quotes for friends, family and loved ones

51.) “A birthday is not a day to fear. It is a day to celebrate and look forward to the coming year.” – Byron Pulsifer

52.) “Birthdays are inevitable, beautiful and very particular moments in our lives! Moments that bring precious memories back, celebrate the present times and give hope for the future.” – Bsbr Arish

53.) “Your birthday is my pleasure. You are my sweetest treasure.” – Danny Demeersseman

54.) “We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.” – Lauren Hutton

55.) “Your birthday is the beginning of your own personal new year. Your first birthday was a beginning, and each new birthday is a chance to begin again, to start over, to take a new grip on life.” – Wilfred Peterson

56.) “I enjoy celebrating birthdays. Everyone should have their birthday celebrated.” – Loraine D. Nunley

57.) “May your years be counted not by your age
but by how you spend your days.” – Catherine Pulsifer

58.) “Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.” – Jean Paul Richter

59.) “Birthdays come but once a year, celebrate and be of good cheer.” Robert Rivers

60.) “Each year as our birthday comes, our thoughts and beliefs may change a bit from year to year. But believe our wish for you is always the same, may you find happiness and blessings all of your days!” – Catherine Pulsifer

Did you find your favorite birthday quotes here?

Birthdays are special days – not only to celebrate among people we love, but also to remind us of how far we’ve come in life. During this occasion, keep these beautiful quotes handy as a gift to yourself.

WATCH THE VIDEO ON THEME: Age Quotes - LWA - Best Top 10 Quotes About Age - Quotes on Age - Age Quotes - Love With Adrish

If you want to know how to age successfully, your best bet is to ask older adults who've figured out the secrets. These 15 wise individuals, all of.

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