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Quotes about age

264 quotes from 181 people

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Old men’s prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
Euripides481–407 BCAlcestis, ll. 669–672, Admetus (Bartlett’s, 1892)
- Life & Death
Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.
Simone de Beauvoir1908–1986Conclusion, p. 543
- Youth
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
Paul Gauguin1848–1903The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 68: from his manuscript, known as ‘Cahier pour Aline’ (ca. 1892-1893)
- Youth
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Dedication: “To Lucy Barfield”
- Reading
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas1914–1953Fern Hill (1946), St. 6
- Time
- Youth
I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973(28 July 1965)
- War & Peace
- Youth
Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
Pearl S. Buck1892–1973China, Past and Present (1972) Ch. 6
It is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Silver Chair (1953), Ch. 16: The Healing of Harms
- Children
- Maturity
Is life so wretched? Isn’t it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddied? You are the one who must grow up.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Vägmärken · Markings (1963), 1950
- Life & Death
- Maturity
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900–1944Le Petit Prince (1943)
- Children
- Maturity
I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.
Gore Vidal1925–2012Palimpsest: A Memoir (1995), Ch. 12: The Guest of the Blue Nuns, p. 162
He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 50 (8 September 1750)
- Youth
The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies.
Buckminster Fuller1895–1983Synergetics (1975), “The Wellspring of Reality”
- Politics
- Youth
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.
Epicurus342–270 BC“Letter to Menoeceus”, as translated in Stoic and Epicurean (1910) by Robert Drew Hicks, p. 167
- Wisdom
Blessings on your young courage, boy; that’s the way to the stars.
Virgil70–19 BCAeneid (29–19 BC), Book IX, Line 641
- Courage
- Youth