AGE quotes
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.
When one becomes indifferent to women, to children, and to young people, he may know that he is superannuated, and has withdrawn from what is sweetest and purest in human existence.
While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.
One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful.—Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place.—At mid-day the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.
Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at mid-day.
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart.—And to keep these in parallel vigor one must exercise, study, and love.
The tendency of old age to the body, 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.
It is not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart.
We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next.—It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.
Old age has deformities enough of its own.—It should never add to them the deformity of vice.
An aged Christian, with the snow of time upon his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest to heaven.
There are two things which grow stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the love of country and religion. Let them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.
Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.
No snow falls lighter than the snow of age; but none lies heavier, for it never melts. It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily.
That which is called dotage, is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity and weakness.
In old age life's shadows are meeting eternity's day.
There are three classes into which all the women past seventy years of age I have ever known, were divided: that dear old soul; that old woman; that old witch.
These are the effects of doting age; vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.
Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health.—Some men are born old, and some never grow so.
Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.
Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway, the passion and infirmity of age.
It is often the case with fine natures, that when the fire of the spirit dies out with increasing age, the power of intellect is unaltered or increased, and an originally educated judgment grows broader and gentler as the river of life widens out to the everlasting sea.
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent.—I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
Age that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living.
At twenty, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; at forty, the judgment; afterward, proportion of character.
To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called old for the first time.
The Grecian ladies counted their age from their marriage, not from their birth.
If reverence is due from others to the old, they ought also to respect themselves; and by grave, prudent, and holy actions, put a crown of glory upon their own gray heads.
How beautiful can time with goodness make an old man look.
Age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible.
Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
The evening of a well spent life brings its lamps with it.
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.
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in I this world is over.
Old age is a blessed time. It gives us leisure to put off our earthly garments one by one, and dress ourselves for heaven.
A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth.—Instead of its bringing sad and melancholy prospects of decay, it should give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.
Let us repect gray hairs, especially our own.
A graceful and honorable old age is the childhood of immortality.
Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.
When we are young, we are slavishly emloyed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we I perceive it is too late to live as we proposed.
Toward old age both men and women hang to life by their habits.
As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.
Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the soft light of the moon, silvering over the evening of life.
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.
As we grow old we become both more foolish and more wise.
Old age is a tryant, which forbids the pleasures of youth on pain of death.
Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit.
Age sits with decent grace upon his visage, and worthily becomes his silver locks, who wears the marks of many years well spent, of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience.
The golden age is before us, not behind us.
Nothing is more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to show to prove that he has lived long, except his years.
Some men never seem to grow old. Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable with fogyism. Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is, and are the first to find the best of what will be.
Ye who are old, remember youth with thought of like affection.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; and did not, with unbashful forehead, woo the means of weakness and debility: therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.
That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred.—They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.
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.
When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
How many fancy they have experience simply because they have grown old.
That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart.
A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.
Years do not make sages; they only make old men.
As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others.
There is not a more repulsive spectacle than an old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.
Age should fly concourse, cover in repeat defects of judgment, and the will subdue; walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore of that vast ocean it must sail so soon.
