Middle Ages Quotes - Page 8

• When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.

  David Sedaris

  Teacher, Loneliness, School

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety.

  Alain de Botton

  Beautiful, Religious, Thinking

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• Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Birthday, Ambition, Ego

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2002). “Wisdom from Gift from the Sea”, p.43, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• Youth is like a long weekend on Friday night. Middle age is like a long weekend on Monday afternoon.

  Richard Nelson Bolles

  Friday, Monday, Weekend

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• The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Strong, Adventure, Science

  Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.98, David R. Godine Publisher

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• ...it would be a mistake...to ascribe to Roman legal conceptions an undivided sway over the development of law and institutions during the Middle Ages... The Laws of Moses as well as the laws of Rome contributed suggestions and impulse to the men and institutions which were to prepare the modern world; and if we could have but eyes to see... we should readily discover how very much besides religion we owe to the Jew.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Mistake, Eye, Men

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• The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, only then will Israel be calm for the next 40 years.

  Michael Ben-Ari

  Israel, Years, Goal

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• The Middle Ages burned its heretics and the modern age threatens them with atom bombs.

  Harold Innis

  Age, Atoms, Bombs

  Harold A. Innis, Daniel Drache (1995). “Staples, Markets, and Cultural Change: Selected Essays”, p.17, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

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• Dear Lord, who made the face of me not all that I would have it be, not really homely, only plain, but strong and patient in the main. Yet one, a man apart, who found me fair and gave his heart. Now Lord, that I have grown more sage . . . into middle age. I only ask, as face grows lines of countenance, it be described as kind; that wrinkles by my eyes will show a little humor as I go; that I may view my humble scene with glance of one content, serene, through grateful, shining eyes that see the blessings you have given me.

  Ruth Perry

  Strong, Kindness, Grateful

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• I wouldn't go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story.

  Roddy Doyle

  Age, Might, Way

  "Commitments" Author Pens Short Goodbyes To Youth". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. May 21, 2011.

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• The chief role of the universities is to prolong adolescence into middle age, at which point early retirement ensures that we lack the means or the will to enforce significant change.

  J. G. Ballard

  Retirement, Mean, Significant Change

  "Age of unreason". Interview With Jeannette Baxter, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2004.

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• There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer.

  Edward Hoagland

  Summer, Cities, Age

  Edward Hoagland (1995). “The Tugman's Passage”

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• Brain power improves by brain use, just as our bodily strength grows with exercise. And there is no doubt that a large proportion of the female population, from school days to late middle age, now have very complicated lives indeed.

  A. N. Wilson

  Birthday, School, Exercise

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• You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.

  Sinead O'Connor

  Artist, Choices, Age

  "Sinéad O'Connor's open letter to Miley Cyrus", www.theguardian.com. October 3, 2013.

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• Middle age is when you go to bed at night and hope you feel better in the morning. Old age is when you go to bed at night and hope you wake up in the morning.

  Groucho Marx

  Inspirational, Morning, Feel Better

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• All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.

  Richard Dawkins

  College, Age, World

  Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins, twitter.com. August 08, 2013.

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• There is only one thing that stands in our midst, attenuated and threatened, but enthroned in some power like a ghost of the Middle Ages: the Trade Unions.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Age, Unions, Ghost

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• Generals think war should be waged like the tourneys of the Middle Ages. I have no use for knights; I need revolutionaries.

  Adolf Hitler

  War, Thinking, Knights

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• You know you've reached middle age when you're cautioned to slow down by your doctor, instead of by the police.

  Joan Rivers

  Doctors, Police, Age

  "Joan Rivers' best burns, quotes and quips" by Andrea Waguespack, www.sfgate.com. September 04, 2014.

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• Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera.

  Mason Cooley

  Birthday, Passion, Age Love

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• The worst thing about this particular end (of my youth) and the beginning (of middle age) is that for the first time in my life, I realize I don't know where I'm going. My wants are simple: a job that I like and a guy whom I love. And on the eve of my thirteth, I must face that I am 0 for 2.

  Emily Giffin

  Jobs, Simple, Guy

  Emily Giffin (2015). “Borrowed & Blue: Something Borrowed, Something Blue”, p.9, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Time, Fear, Women

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• The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age.

  Orson Welles

  Inspirational, Funny, Birthday

  Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich (1992). “This is Orson Welles”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Moon, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.167, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• 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 midday.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Good Morning, Passion, Shadow

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