Ageing

Ageing (British English) or aging (American English) is the ongoing process of becoming older. In the narrowed sense of explaining the term, refers to biological ageing of human beings, animals and other living organisms. In the broader sense, ageing can refer to single cells within an organism (cellular senescence), or to the population of a species-(population ageing).

Antiquity

 * When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, himself subject to aging, not beyond aging, sees another who is aged, he is horrified, humiliated, & disgusted, oblivious to himself that he too is subject to aging, not beyond aging. If I – who am subject to aging, not beyond aging – were to be horrified, humiliated, & disgusted on seeing another person who is aged, that would not be fitting for me.
 * Gautama Buddha, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3:8 as translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu


 * As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.
 * Cicero, De Senectute (Of Old Age), book 5, section 15; reported in Herbert N. Couch, Cicero on the Art of Growing Old (1959), p. 21.


 * No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year.
 * Cicero, De Senectute.


 * Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.
 * Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 10.122, in Moral Exhortation (1986), p. 33.


 * "I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.
 * But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.
 * Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment."
 * Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite (Job 32:7-9).


 * Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man
 * Leviticus 19:32.


 * εἰ καὶ ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος διαφθείρεται, ἀλλ’ ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν ἀνακαινοῦται ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ἡμέρᾳ.
 * Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
 * Paul of Tarsus, 2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV


 * One should pay attention to an old man's words. One should submit oneself to his protection.
 * Sumerian proverb from Urim, Text online at,.


 * The instructions of an old man are precious.
 * Šuruppak, Instructions of Shuruppak (3rd millennium BCE).

Sixteenth century

 * Age is deformed, youth unkind, We scorn their bodies, they our mind.
 * Thomas Bastard, Chrestoleros (1598), Bk.7, Epigram 9


 * If youth only knew; if only age could.
 * Henri Estienne, Les Prémices (1594).


 * I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
 * William Shakespeare, Richard II (1595).

Seventeenth century

 * An old goat is never the more reverend for his beard.
 * Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia.


 * Old age is not so fiery as youth, but when once provoked cannot be appeased.
 * Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia.


 * Age imprints more wrinkles on the mind than it does on the face.
 * Montaigne, Essays.


 * En vieillissant, on devient plus fou et plus sage.
 * As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
 * François de La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou Sentences et Maximes Morales (1655); translation by Edward M. Stack (1956), p. 26; reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).


 * Peu de gens savent être vieux.
 * Few persons know how to be old.
 * François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes (1665–1678), 448.


 * La vieillesse est un tyran qui défend, sur peine de la vie, tous les plaisirs de la jeunesse.
 * Old age is a tyrant who forbids, upon pain of death, all the pleasures of youth.
 * François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes (1665–1678), 461.


 * My God! my time is in Thine hands. Should it please Thee to lengthen my life, and complete, as Thou hast begun, the work of blanching my locks, grant me grace to wear them as an unsullied crown of honour.
 * Christian Scriver, Gotthold's Emblems (1667), translated by Robert Menzies (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1862), CCCXXIII, Grey Hairs, p. 422.

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
 * That time of year thou mayst in me behold
 * William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXIII (1609)

Eighteenth century

 * There are so few who can grow old with a good grace.
 * Richard Steele, The Spectator (1712).


 * Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen, as our sun declines.
 * Edward Young, Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), "Night Fifth: The Relapse", line 661

Nineteenth century

 * But now at thirty years my hair is gray–– (I wonder what it will be like at forty? I thought of a peruke the other day) My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squander'd my whole summer while 'twas May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I Have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible.
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I, stanza 213.


 * There is an old age which has more youth of heart than youth itself.
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Alice, or The Mysteries (1838), Book V, chapter I.


 * It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would not last him much longer.
 * Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter XVIII. Miss Knag, after Doting on Kate Nickleby for three Whole Days, Makes up her Mind to Hate her for Evermore. The Causes Which Lead Miss Knag to Form this Resolution.


 * As we grow old....the beauty turns inward.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals.


 * When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
 * Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.


 * There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer stages of life.
 * Jean Ingelow, Fated to be Free.


 * ... bledě modré oči [Slečny Elis] jistě padesátkráte viděly zemi v tom krásném jarním rouše.
 * ... [the] pale blue eyes [of Miss Elis] must have seen the earth fifty times in that beautiful spring robe.
 * Alois Jirásek, Filozofská historie (1878), chapter I.


 * Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.
 * Joseph Joubert, Pensées.

Twentieth century

 * The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed suddenly into magnificent sense.
 * Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life, U. Baer, trans. (2007).


 * All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?
 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Ponkapog Papers (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1903), "Leaves From a Notebook", p. 29


 * I still think of myself as I was 25 years ago. Then I look in a mirror and see an old bastard and I realize it's me.
 * Dave Allen, The Independent (1993).


 * I recently turned 60. Practically a third of my life is over.
 * Woody Allen, The Observer Review (1996).


 * When you're forty, half of you belongs to the past — and when you're seventy, nearly all of you.
 * Jean Anouilh, Time Remembered.


 * The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.
 * Núria Añó, 2066. Beginning the Age of Correction.


 * He was filled with terrible knowing: This day had been exactly as empty as the last and tomorrow would be the same. This is what it is to be old, Henry thought.
 * Dale Bailey, Quinn’s Way, in Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1997, p. 26


 * One of the more traumatic aspects of reaching age 40 is that you no longer have the same body you had when you were 21. I know I don't. Sometimes when I take a shower I look down at my body and I want to scream: "Hey, THIS isn't my body! THIS body belongs to Willard Scott!" But this is perfectly natural. Screaming in the shower, I mean. Reaching age 40, however, is NOT natural. I base this statement on extensive scientific documentation in the form of a newspaper article I vaguely remember reading once, which stated that the life expectancy for human beings in the wild is about 35 years. Think about what that means. It means that if you were in the wild, even in the nonsmoking section, by now you'd be Worm Chow. So we can clearly see that going past age 40 is basically an affront to Nature, with Exhibit A being the Gabor sisters.
 * Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 40 (1990). New York: Crown Publishers, p. 17


 * Why do we get older? Why do our bodies wear out? Why can't we just go on and on and on, accumulating a potentially infinite number of Frequent Flier mileage points? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have been asking ever since they realized that being a philosopher did not involve any heavy lifting. And yet the answer is really very simple: Our bodies are mechanical devices, and like all mechanical devices, they break down. Some devices, such as battery-operated toys costing $39.95, break down almost instantly upon exposure to the Earth's atmosphere. Other devices, such as stereo systems owned by your next-door neighbor's 13-year-old son who likes to listen to bands with names like "Nerve Damage" at a volume capable of disintegrating limestone, will continue to function perfectly for many years, even if you hit them with an ax. But the fundamental law of physics is that sooner or later every mechanism ceases to function for one reason or another, and it is never covered under the warranty.
 * Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 40 (1990). New York: Crown Publishers, p. 19


 * As we know from slicing up dead worms in Biology Lab, the "parts" that make up this miraculous "mechanism" that we call the human body are called "cells"- billions and billions (even more, in the case of Marlon Brando) of organisms so tiny that we cannot see or hear them unless you have been using illegal narcotics. When you are very young, each of your cells, based on its individual personality and aptitude, selects an area of specialization, such as the thigh, in which to pursue its career. As you grow, the cell multiplies, and it teaches its offspring to be thigh cells also, showing them the various "tricks of the trade." Thus the proud thigh-cell tradition is handed down from generation to generation, providing you with thighs so sleek and taut that they look great even when encased in Spandex garments that would be a snug fit on a Bic pen. But as your body approaches middle age, this cellular discipline starts to break down. The newer cells- you know how it is with the young- start to challenge the conventional values of their elders. "What's so great about sleek and taut?" is what these newer cells would say, if they had mouths, which thank God they do not. They become listless and bored, and many of them, looking for "kicks," turn to cellulite. Your bodily tissue begins to deteriorate, gradually becoming saggier and lumpier, until one day you glance in the mirror and realize, to your horror, that you look as though for some reason you are attempting to smuggle out of the country an entire driveway's worth of gravel concealed inside your upper legs. And this very same process is going on all over your body.
 * Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 40 (1990). New York: Crown Publishers, p. 19-20


 * Is there something you can do about it? You're darned right there is! You can fight back. Mister Old Age is not going to get you, by golly! All you need is a little determination- a willingness to get out of that reclining lounge chair, climb into that sweatsuit, lace on those running shoes, stride out that front door, and hurl yourself in front of that municipal bus.. No, wait. Sorry. For a moment there I got carried away by the bleakness of it all. Forget what I said. Really. There is absolutely no need to become suicidally depressed about the fact that every organ in your body is headed straight down the toilet. There really are things you can do to keep your body looking healthy and youthful for years to come. But before I discuss these things, I want you to answer the following questions honestly: Are you willing to make the hard sacrifices needed to be really healthy? Are you willing to commit yourself totally to a program of regular exercise, close medical supervision, and the elimination of all caffeine, alcohol, and rich foods, to be replaced by a strict diet of nutrition-rich, kelp-like plant growths so unappetizing that they will make you actually lust for tofu? Or are you the kind of shallow, irresponsible person who wants a purely cosmetic change, a "quick and dirty" surface gloss that may make you look young and healthy, but actually has no long-term value? Me too.
 * Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 40 (1990). New York: Crown Publishers, p. 20-21


 * Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.
 * Jacques Barzun, as quoted in “Age of Reason,” The New Yorker (2007-10-22), p. 103.


 * Nothing is so hateful to the philistine as the "dreams of his youth." ... For what appeared to him in his dreams was the voice of the spirit, calling him once, as it does everyone. It is of this that youth always reminds him, eternally and ominously. That is why he is antagonistic toward youth.
 * Walter Benjamin, "Experience" (1913), L. Spencer and S. Jost, trans., Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, volume 1 (1996), pp. 4-5


 * Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
 * Jack Benny, New York Times (1974).


 * AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).


 * Yet somehow our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.
 * Pearl S. Buck, My Several Worlds (1954), p. 337.


 * The years swarm around me like midges, and though each tiny bite only costs me a single drop of blood, they are so thick I am nearly bled dry.
 * Stephen L. Burns, Redeemer’s Riddle, in Marion Zimmer Bradley (ed.) Sword and Sorceress IV (1987), p. 208


 * Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.
 * Attributed to Maurice-Auguste Chevalier in James B. Simpson, Contemporary Quotations (1964), p. 295, citing The New York Times (Sunday, October 9, 1960); reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).


 * A man is as old as he's feeling, a woman is as old as she looks.
 * Mortimer Collins, The Unknown Quantity.


 * They say that getting old is a curse, But not getting older is worse.
 * , as quoted in "Meet the 92-year-old New York woman who once starred with Bogart" by Lou Lumenick, New York Post (February 17, 2016)


 * At times it seems to me that I am living my life backwards, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles—wrinkles my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there and that I had the greatest trouble removing.
 * André Gide, Pretexts, J. O’Brien, ed. (1964) pp. 319-320


 * To an old man any place that's warm is homeland.
 * Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths.


 * Pilkington, at Mombasa, had produced individuals who were sexually mature at four and full-grown at six and a half. A scientific triumph. But socially useless. Six-year-old men and women were too stupid to do even Epsilon work. And the process was an all-or-nothing one; either you failed to modify at all, or else you modified the whole way. They were still trying to find the ideal compromise between adults of twenty and adults of six. So far without success. Mr. Foster sighed and shook his head.
 * Aldous Huxley, Brave New World


 * Old age is like an opium-dream. Nothing seems real except what is unreal.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Over the Teacups.


 * This increase in the life span and in the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacity—and the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned. It is not enough for a great nation merely to have added new years to life—our objective must also be to add new life to those years.
 * John F. Kennedy, special message to the Congress on the needs of the nation’s senior citizens (February 21, 1963); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 189.


 * Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and having people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.
 * Philip Larkin, The Old Fools (1974).


 * I've changed my attitudes about what it means to age. Sometimes people decide it's their lot in life to be old, but people like Grandma bring color and excellence to their lives. That's what I've tried to do, too. I'm looking forward to the next stage.
 * , reported in Bill Adler, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women (2001), p. 19.


 * Sometimes people grieve when they find old age coming upon them, when they find their vehicles not so strong as they used to be. They desire the strength and the faculties that they once had. It is wise for them to repress that desire, to realize that their bodies have done good work, and if they can no longer do the same amount as of yore, they should do gently and peacefully what they can, but not worry themselves over the change. Presently they will have new bodies; and the way to ensure a good vehicle is to make such use as one can of the old one, but in any case to be serene and calm and unruffled. The only way to do that is to forget self, to let all selfish desires cease, and to turn the thought outward to the helping of others as far as one’s capabilities go.
 * Charles W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path  (1925)


 * Never respect years, only deeds.
 * Tanith Lee, Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977), Part 3, Chapter 6


 * Will nature make a man of me yet?
 * Johnny Marr and Morrissey,  (1983)


 * Old age has its pleasures, which though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
 * W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up.


 * Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form.
 * André Maurois, The Art of Living (1940), chapter 8, p. 282–83, as translated by James Whitall.


 * The real affliction of old age is remorse.
 * Cesare Pavese, The Moon and the Bonfire, chapter VIII, p. 49.


 * The first symptom is that hair grows on your ears. It's very disconcerting.
 * Edward G. Robinson, All My Yesterdays: An Autobiography (1973), p. 281.


 * There is something reassuring, too (at least, I find it so), in these renewals of former admirations. We all endeavour, as Spinoza says, to persist in our own being; and that endeavour is, he adds, the very essence of our existence. When, therefore, we find that what delighted us once can still delight us: that though the objects of our admiration may be intermittent, yet they move in fixed orbits, and their return is certain, these reappearances will suggest that we have after all maintained something of our own integrity; that a sort of system lies beneath the apparent variability of our interests; that there is, so to speak, a continuity within ourselves, a core of meaning which has not disintegrated with the years.
 * Logan Pearsall Smith, Reperusals and Recollections (1936), p. 1.


 * People don't grow up — they just begin to overestimate their own importance.
 * Richard Summerbell, Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary (1985)


 * Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
 * Leon Trotsky, Diary in Exile (1959).


 * Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living.
 * Samuel Ullman, Youth (1918)


 * Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.
 * Samuel Ullman, "Youth," in The Silver Treasury: Prose and Verse for Every Mood (1934), p. 323–24.


 * No two moments in the life of an individual are exactly alike; there is between the later and the earlier periods only the similarity of the higher and lower parts of a spiral ascent.
 * Otto Weininger, Sex and Character (1906), p. 107

Twenty-first century



 * There are some people who imagine that older adults don't know how to use the internet. My immediate reaction is, "I've got news for you, we invented it."
 * Vint Cerf, a "father of the internet," quoted at age 73 in "Your Life: Vinton Cerf" interview by David Frank in AARP Bulletin (December 2016, Vol. 57, No. 10, p. 30.)


 * I am old now, or at least, I am no longer young, and everything I see reminds me of something else I’ve seen, such that I see nothing for the first time. A bonny girl, her hair fiery red, reminds me only of another hundred such lasses, and their mothers, and what they were as they grew, and what they looked like when they died. It is the curse of age, that all things are reflections of other things.
 * Neil Gaiman, “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains…” in Trigger Warning (2015), ISBN 978-0-06-305204-8, pp. 52-53


 * Lazarus: You're so sentimental, Doctor. Maybe you are older than you look.
 * The Doctor: I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.
 * Lazarus: That's a price worth paying.
 * The Doctor: Is it?
 * The Lazarus Experiment, Doctor Who, written by Stephen Greenhorn, (5 May 2007)


 * And in truth, of course, I'm not just 60 - I'm twelve, I'm 23, I'm 37, I'm 42, I'm 18. I'm every age I've ever been. Depending on what day of the week it is and what the situation calls for at the moment.
 * Billy Joel, Without the Nazis, there wouldn't have been Billy Joel – Die Welt (10 May 2009)


 * Nothing makes a man feel older than a young woman.
 * Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 69


 * Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise,, wisdom, , and this post-heroic absence of agitation.
 * Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Chance, Success, Happiness, and Stoicism, p. 24.


 * With age came wisdom. Sometimes wisdom came with an ass kicking, too. And nothing could kick ass like the whole world.
 * Jay Lake, The Decaying Mansions of Memory (2011), in in Untold Adventures ISBN 978-0-7869-5837-5, p. 344


 * With age comes wisdom. Or at least experience.
 * Jay Lake, The Decaying Mansions of Memory (2011), in in Untold Adventures ISBN 978-0-7869-5837-5, p. 373


 * Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort.
 * Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012) Ch. 3. The Cat and the Washing Machine, p. 55.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 12-17.


 * It is always in season for old men to learn.
 * Æschylus, Age.


 * 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, The Art of Preserving Health (1744), Book II, line 484.


 * 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, Growing Old.


 * On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a wine cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very small for its age," said Gnathæna.
 * Athenæus, Deipnosophists, XIII. 46.


 * 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.
 * Francis Bacon, Essay XLII, Of Youth and Age.


 * Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
 * Quoted by Francis Bacon, Apothegm 97.


 * Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.
 * James Beattie, The Minstrel (1771), Book I, Stanza 25.


 * An old man in a house is a good sign in a house.
 * Ascribed to Ben Syra (from the Hebrew).


 * 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!
 * Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Cinquante Ans. C. L. Betts' translation.


 * By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
 * Isaac Bickerstaf, Maid of the Mill, Act I, II.


 * Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II (1812), Stanza 88.


 * 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.
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II (1812), Stanza 98.


 * He has grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life. So that no wonder waits him.
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 5.


 * Years steal Fire from the mind, as vigor from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 8.


 * Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo, Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV (1818), Stanza 12.


 * Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company—the gout or stone.
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto III, Stanza 59.


 * 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!
 * Lord Byron, On this day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year.


 * For oute of olde feldys, as men sey, Comyth al this newe corn from yere to yere; And out of olde bokis, in good fey, Comyth al this newe science that men lere.
 * Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Fowles, line 21.


 * I think every man is a fool or a physician at thirty years of age.
 * Dr. Cheyne.


 * Mature fieri senem, si diu velis esse senex.
 * You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.
 * Cicero, De Senectute, 10 (quoted as an "honoured proverb.").


 * The spring, like youth, fresh blossoms doth produce, But autumn makes them ripe and fit for use: So Age a mature mellowness doth set On the green promises of youthful heat.
 * Sir John Denham, Cato Major, Part IV, line 47.


 * His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
 * Deuteronomy, XXXIV. 7.


 * Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.
 * Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, Book III, Chapter I.


 * The Disappointment of Manhood succeeds to the delusion of Youth; let us hope that the heritage of Old Age is not Despair.
 * Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey, Book VIII, Chapter IV.


 * No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnal face.
 * John Donne, Ninth Elegy, To Lady Magdalen Herbert.


 * Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years; Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn put with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
 * John Dryden, Œdipus, Act IV, scene 1.


 * His hair just grizzled As in a green old age.
 * John Dryden, Œdipus, Act III, scene 1.


 * Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.
 * Ecclesiasticus, IX. 10.


 * Nature abhors the old.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Circles.


 * We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to count.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, Old Age.


 * 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.
 * John Gay, Fables (1727), Part I, The Shepherd and the Philosopher.


 * In a good old age.
 * Genesis, XV. 15.


 * Old and well stricken in age.
 * Genesis, XVIII. 11.


 * She may very well pass for forty-three, In the dusk with a light behind her.
 * W. S. Gilbert, Trial by Jury.


 * One often says to oneself … that one ought to avoid having too many different businesses, to avoid becoming a jack-of-all-trades, and that the older one gets, the more one ought to avoid entering into new business. But … the very fact of growing older means taking up a new business; all our circumstances change, and we must either stop doing anything at all or else willing and consciously take on the new role we have to play on life’s stage.
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections.


 * Das Alter macht nicht kindisch, wie man spricht, Es findet uns nur noch als wahre Kinder.
 * Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true; We're only genuine children still in Age's season.
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Vorspiel auf dem Theater, line 180.


 * 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."
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Old Age.


 * 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!
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 97.


 * I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I, scene 1.


 * They say women and music should never be dated.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act III.


 * 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.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 251.


 * Slow-consuming age.
 * Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), Stanza 9.


 * Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl— Youth is the sign of them, one and all. A smoldering hearth and a silent stage— These are a type of the world of Age.
 * William Ernest Henley, Of Youth and Age, Envoy.


 * To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., on the seventieth birthday of Julia Ward Howe, May 27, 1889.


 * You hear that boy laughing? You think he's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done. The children laugh loud as they troop to his call. And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Boys, Stanza 9.


 * A green old age, unconscious of decays, That proves the hero born in better days.
 * Homer, The Iliad, Book XXIII, line 925. Pope's translation.


 * When he's forsaken, Wither'd and shaken, What can an old man do but die?
 * Thomas Hood, Ballad.


 * Tempus abire tibi est, ne… Rideat et pulset lasciva decentius ætas.
 * It is time for thee to be gone, lest the age more decent in its wantonness should laugh at thee and drive thee off the stage.
 * Horace, Epistles, Book II. 2. 215.


 * Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men, Nor men the weak anxieties of age.
 * Horace, Of the Art of Poetry, Wentworth Dillon's trans, line 212.


 * Seu me tranquilla senectus Exspectat, seu mors atris circumvolat alis.
 * Either a peaceful old age awaits me, or death flies round me with black wings.
 * Horace, Satires, Book II. 1. 57.


 * Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five; He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.
 * Samuel Johnson, To Mrs. Thrale, when Thirty-five, line 11.


 * Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage, Till pitying Nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.
 * Samuel Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, line 308.


 * L'on craint la vieillesse, que l'on n'est pas sûr de pouvoir atteindre.
 * We dread old age, which we are not sure of being able to attain.
 * Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, XI.


 * L'on espère de vieillir, et l'on craint la vieillesse; c'est-à-dire, l'on aime la vie et l'on fuit la mort.
 * We hope to grow old and we dread old age; that is to say, we love life and we flee from death.
 * Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, XI.


 * The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary, And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Canzone.


 * How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Solutamus, line 250.


 * Whatever poet, orator, or sage May say of it, old age is still old age.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Solutamus, line 264.


 * 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.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Solutamus, line 281.


 * And the bright faces of my young companions Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student (1843), Act III, scene 3.


 * 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.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Old Age.


 * 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 Marquis of Lossie, Chapter XL.


 * What find you better or more honorable than age? Take the preeminence of it in everything;—in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
 * Shakerley-Marmion, Antiquary, Act II, scene 1.


 * When you try to conceal your wrinkles, Polla, with paste made from beans, you deceive yourself, not me. Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised. A fault concealed is presumed to be great.
 * Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book III, Epistle 42.


 * Set is the sun of my years; And over a few poor ashes, I sit in my darkness and tears.
 * Gerald Massey, A Wail.


 * Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!—Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things.
 * Melchior, Floresta Española de Apothegmas o Sentencias, etc., II. 1. 20.


 * The ages roll Forward; and forward with them, draw my soul Into time's infinite sea. And to be glad, or sad, I care no more; But to have done, and to have been, before I cease to do and be.
 * Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), The Wanderer, Book IV, A Confession and Apology, Stanza 9.


 * 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.
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XI, line 535.


 * 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.
 * Thomas Moore, Spring and Autumn.


 * We age inevitably: The old joys fade and are gone: And at last comes equanimity and the flame burning clear.
 * James Oppenheim, New Year's Eve.


 * Thyself no more deceive, thy youth hath fled.
 * Petrarch, To Laura in Death, Sonnet LXXXII.


 * Senex cum extemplo est, jam nec sentit, nec sapit; Ajunt solere eum rursum repuerascere.
 * When a man reaches the last stage of life,—without senses or mentality—they say that he has grown a child again.
 * Plautus, Mercator, II. 2. 24.


 * Why will you break the Sabbath of my days? Now sick alike of Envy and of Praise.
 * Alexander Pope, First Book of Horace, Epistle I, line 3.


 * Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've played, and loved, and ate, and drank your fill. Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage.
 * Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, Book II, Epistle 2, line 322.


 * 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.
 * Alexander Pope, Prologue to the Satires, line 408.


 * His leaf also shall not wither.
 * Psalms I. 3.


 * The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
 * Psalms XC. 10.


 * So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
 * Psalms XC. 12.


 * Das Alter ist nicht trübe weil darin unsere Freuden, sondern weil unsere Hoffnungen aufhören.
 * What makes old age so sad is, not that our joys but that our hopes cease.
 * Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 34.


 * The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed suddenly into magnificent sense.
 * Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life, U. Baer, trans. (2007).


 * Age has now Stamped with its signet that ingenuous brow.
 * Samuel Rogers, Human Life (1819).


 * 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, Song, Stanza 1.


 * 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, I'm Growing Old.


 * On his bold visage middle age Had slightly press'd its signet sage.
 * Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto I, Part XXI. (1810).


 * Thus pleasures fade away; Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay, And leave us dark, forlorn, and gray.
 * Walter Scott, Marmion (1808), introduction to Canto II, Stanza 7.


 * 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.
 * Walter Scott, Rokeby, Canto V, Stanza 1.


 * Old friends are best. King James us'd to call for his Old Shoes, they were easiest for his Feet.
 * Selden, Table Talk, Friends.


 * Nihil turpius est, quam grandis natu senex, qui nullum aliud habet argumentum, quo se probet diu vixisse, præter ætatem.
 * Nothing is more dishonourable than an old man, heavy with years, who has no other evidence of his having lived long except his age.
 * Seneca the Younger, De Tranquillitate, 3. 7.


 * Turpis et ridicula res est elementarius senex: juveni parandum, seni utendum est.
 * An old man in his rudiments is a disgraceful object. It is for youth to acquire, and for age to apply.
 * Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, XXXVI. 4.


 * Senectus insanabilis morbus est.
 * Old age is an incurable disease.
 * Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CVIII. 29.


 * Every pleasure defers to its last its greatest delights.
 * Seneca the Younger, Letter 12 (Robin Campbell trans.).


 * For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them.
 * William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act V, scene 3, line 40.


 * 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; Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.
 * William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act II, scene 3, line 47.


 * All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
 * William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act II, scene 7, line 139. Same idea in Jean de Courcy—Le Chemin de Vaillance. Copy in British Museum, King's MSS. No. 14. E, II. See also Horace—Ars Poetica. 158. (Ages given as four). In the Mishna, the ages are given as 14, by Jehuda, son of Thema. In Plato's (spurious) Dialog. Axiochus, Socrates sums up human life.


 * There is an old poor man Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.
 * William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act II, scene 8, line 129.


 * 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.
 * William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act V, scene 1, line 311.


 * What should we speak of When we are old as you? When we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December.
 * William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act III, scene 3, line 36.


 * An old man is twice a child.
 * William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act II, scene 2, line 404.


 * At your age, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment.
 * William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 4, line 68.


 * Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act II, scene 4, line 193.


 * Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act I, scene 2, line 91.


 * You are old; As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
 * William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act I, scene 4, line 261.


 * Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine.
 * William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act II, scene 4, line 148.


 * Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; not an hour more nor less, And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
 * William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act IV, scene 7, line 59.


 * 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.
 * William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act V, scene 3, line 22.


 * Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
 * William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 8.


 * Nor age so eat up my invention.
 * William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act IV, scene 1, line 192.


 * Give me a staff of honor for mine age, But not a sceptre to control the world.
 * William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (c. 1584-1590), Act I, scene 1, line 198.


 * "You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William,—a hearty old man: Now tell me the reason, I pray."
 * Robert Southey, The Old Man's Comforts, and how he Gained Them.


 * When an old gentleman waggles his head and says: "Ah, so I thought when I was your age," it is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: "My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours." And yet the one is as good as the other.
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, Crabbed Age and Youth.


 * Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.
 * Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting.


 * I swear she's no chicken; she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.
 * Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), I.


 * Vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.
 * We extol ancient things, regardless of our own times.
 * Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), II. 88.


 * Vetera semper in laude, præsentia in fastidio.
 * Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavour.
 * Tacitus, Dialogue de Oratoribus, 18.


 * An old man is twice a child.
 * John Taylor, The Old, Old, very Old Man (Thomas Parr).


 * O good gray head which all men knew.
 * Alfred Tennyson, On the Death of the Duke of Wellington, Stanza 4.


 * Age too shines out: and, garrulous, recounts the feats of youth.
 * James Thomson, The Seasons, Autumn (1730), line 1231.


 * Annus enim octogesimus admonet me, ut sarcinas colligam, antequam proficiscare vita.
 * For my eightieth year warns me to pack up my baggage before I leave life.
 * Varro, De Re Rustica, I, 1.


 * For Age with stealing steps Hath clawed me with his crutch.
 * Thomas Vaux, The Aged Lover renounceth Love. (Quoted in Hamlet, Act V, scene 1. Not in quartos).


 * Omnia fert ætas, animum quoque.
 * Age carries all things away, even the mind.
 * Virgil, Eclogues (c. 37 BC), IX. 51.


 * 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, Address at Laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument (June 17, 1825).


 * Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.
 * John Webster, Westward Ho, Act II, scene 1.


 * Thus fares it still in our decay, And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind.
 * William Wordsworth, The Fountain, Stanza 9.


 * But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.
 * William Wordsworth, To a Young Lady.


 * The monumental pomp of age Was with this goodly Personage; A stature undepressed in size, Unbent, which rather seemed to rise In open victory o'er the weight Of seventy years, to loftier height.
 * William Wordsworth, White Doe of Rylstone, Canto III.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).


 * An aged Christian with the snow of time on his head may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven.
 * Edwin Hubbell Chapin, p. 439.


 * Thanks to that regular and temperate course of life I have ever lived, I am still capable of taking an active part in these public scenes of business. In fine, he who fills up every hour of his life in such kind of labors as those I have mentioned, will insensibly slide into old age without perceiving its arrival; and his powers, instead of being suddenly and prematurely extinguished, will gradually decline by the gentle and natural effect of accumulated years.
 * Cicero, p. 438.


 * The day of life spent in honest and benevolent labor comes in hope to an evening calm and lovely; and though the sun declines, the shadows that he leaves behind are only to curtain the spirit unto rest.
 * Henry Giles, p. 438.


 * It is not so bad a thing to grow old; it is only getting a little nearer home; a little nearer to immortal youth.
 * Arthur Henry Kenney, p. 439.


 * Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
 * George MacDonald, p. 439.


 * The second childhood of a saint is the early infancy of a happy immortality, as we believe.
 * William Mountford, p. 438.


 * The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen" at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.
 * William Mountford, p. 439.