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Quotes about age

264 quotes from 181 people

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When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect — but do not believe him. Never put your trust into anything but your own intellect.
Linus Pauling1901–1994Linus Pauling: Scientist and Peacemaker (2001) by Clifford Mead and Thomas Hager.
- Advice
To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.
Walt Disney1901–1966Speech on the opening day of Disneyland (17 July 1955)
- Youth
When you get to my age, and I’m 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realise that, it doesn’t bother you much.
John Cleeseborn 1939From Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian (2007)
In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
Willa Cather1873–1947My Ántonia (1918), My Antonia (1918), Book V, Ch. 1In context
In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864The Snow-Image, and Other Tales, Preface (1852)
When you’re 50 you start thinking about things you haven’t thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity — but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.
Joyce Carol Oatesborn 1938Interview in The Guardian (18 August 1989)
Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.
Truman Capote1924–1984Local Color (1950)
- Children
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George Orwell1903–1950Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly (Winter 1945)
- Intelligence
- Wisdom
Women are not forgiven for aging. Robert Redford’s lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.
Jane Fondaborn 1937Michael Perry. Jane’s wrinkled but Fonda herself now. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1985
- Women
I was never a child. I was always a menopausal woman within a child’s body.
Tracey Ullmanborn 1959Tracey Takes On… (1996–99)
- Comedy
At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words “fuck off” much more frequently.
Helen Mirrenborn 1945The Mail on Sunday (September 2015); reproduced in “Quote Unquote,” The Stage (17 September 2015)
- Advice
How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going.
Harry Stylesborn 1994Interview by Cameron Crowe in Rolling Stone (18 April 2017)
- Women
- Youth
As you get older, all those dumb clichés, they’re all true. You only have a certain amount of time left, and you should only spend it doing the things that you want to do.
Rob Reiner1947–2025“Rob Reiner on his favorite films, and why he changed the ending of ‘When Harry Met Sally…’”, A.V. Club (September 3, 2016).
- Time
The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don’t read and they rarely listen.
Federico Fellini1920–1993I’m a Born Liar (2003), “Younger Generation”
- Television
- Youth
I feel that there is something in having passed one’s childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965Letter to Marquis Childs quoted in St. Louis Post Dispatch (15 October 1930) and in the address “American Literature and the American Language” delivered at Washington University (9 June 1953) published in Washington University Studies, New Series …
- Youth