Old Age Quotes - Page 11

• Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh.

  John Dryden

  Thinking, Age, Creeps

  Juvenal, John Dryden, Nahum Tate, Persius, Richard Duke (1713). “The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: and of Aulus Persius Flaccus”, p.150

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• The short bloom of our brief and narrow life flies fast away. While we are calling for flowers and wine and women, old age is upon us.
  [Lat., Festinat enim decurrere velox
  Flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae
  Portico; dum bibimus dum sera unguenta puellas
  Poscimus obrepit non intellecta senectus.]

  Juvenal

  Life, Flower, Wine

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• But with what incessant and grievous ills is old age surrounded!

  Juvenal

  Age, Incessant

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• For the short-lived bloom and contracted span of brief and wretched life is fast fleeting away! While we are drinking and calling for garlands, ointments, and women, old age steals swiftly on with noiseless step.

  Juvenal

  Drinking, Age, Fleeting

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• If old age means a crown of thorns, the trick is to wear it jauntily.

  Clare Boothe Luce

  Mean, Age, Crowns

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• You will be old-fashioned one day. It's more shocking than getting old.

  Enid Bagnold

  Age, One Day, Old Fashioned

  Enid Bagnold (1970). “Four plays”

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• That's one of the privileges of old age - you can give plenty of advice 'cause most folks think that's all you got left anyway.

  Gloria Naylor

  Thinking, Giving, Advice

  Gloria Naylor (1990). “Selected from the Women of Brewster Place”, Signal Hill Publications

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• The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
  Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
  Where all his long anxieties forgot
  Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
  Or recollected only to gild o'er
  And add a smile to what was sweet before,
  He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
  Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
  Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
  And having lived a trifler, die a man.

  William Cowper

  Sweet, Retirement, Thinking

  William Cowper (1847). “Poems, with a memoir of the author”, p.146

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• Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.

  Alexander Pope

  Age, Sickness, States

  Alexander Pope (1853). “The poetical works of Alexander Pope”, p.73

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• Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
  Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away;
  . . . .
  To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
  Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.

  Alexander Pope

  Night, Dancing, Age

  Alexander Pope (1822). “The Works of Alexander Pope”, p.373

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• Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are Day and Night.
  Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression-great is Silence.

  Walt Whitman

  Night, Greatness, Expression

  Walt Whitman (2011). “Leaves of Grass, 1860: The 150th Anniversary Facsimile Edition”, p.200, University of Iowa Press

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• Old age was growing inside me. It kept catching my eye from the depths of the mirror. I was paralyzed sometimes as I saw it making its way toward me so steadily when nothing inside me was ready for it.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Eye, Mirrors, Age

  Simone de Beauvoir (1977). “Force of circumstance”

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• Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Memories, Sadness, Age

  Simone de Beauvoir (1977). “Force of Circumstance: Hard times”

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• Society turns away from the aged worker as though he belonged to another species. That is why the whole question is buried in a conspiracy of silence. Old age exposes the failure of our entire civilization.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Civilization, Silence, Age

  Simone de Beauvoir (1972). “La vieillesse”

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• A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.

  John Quincy Adams

  Reflection, Men, Age

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• The silver-leaved birch retains in its old age a soft bark; there are some such men.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Men, Age, Silver

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• it is a mistake to talk of the twilight of age, or the blurred sight of old people. The long day grows clearer at its close, and the petty fogs of prejudice which rose between us and our fellows in youth melt away as the sun goes down. At last we see God's creatures as they are.

  Rebecca Harding Davis

  Mistake, Twilight, Sight

  Rebecca Harding Davis (1904). “Rebecca Harding Davis: Writing Cultural Autobiography”, p.129, Vanderbilt University Press

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• if you don't want to get old, don't mellow.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Age, Want, Mellow

  Linda Ellerbee (1993). “Move On”

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• certain very old people reach an age where every funeral becomes some sort of insane confirmation of strength, rather than of vulnerability, as it is when we are in our thirties or forties and our friends die.

  Erica Jong

  People, Funeral, Insane

  Erica Jong (2013). “Shylock's Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice”, p.136, Open Road Media

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• Sisters, while they are growing up, tend to be very rivalrous and as young mothers they are given to continual rivalrous comparisons of their several children. But once the children grow older, sisters draw closer together and often, in old age, they become each other's chosen and most happy companions. In addition to their shared memories of childhood and of their relationship to each other's children, they share memories of the same home, the same homemaking style, and the same small prejudices about housekeeping that carry the echoes of their mother's voice.

  Margaret Mead

  Mother, Children, Growing Up

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• You will know you're old when you cease to be amazed.

  Noel Coward

  Age, Amazed, Cease

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• If I do not do sensible things about investments I shall spend my old age in a workhouse, where nobody will understand my jokes.

  Rebecca West

  Age, Investment, Sensible

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.27, Open Road Media

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• The aged are terrible - mere heaps of cinders on the grass from which none can tell how tall the flames once were or what company gathered round them.

  Rebecca West

  Flames, Age, Grass

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Judge”, p.45, Open Road Media

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• Life has taught me that the greatest tragedy is not to die too soon but to live too long.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Long, Tragedy, Taught

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1958). “Letters of Ellen Glasgow”

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• There are three signs of old age: loss of memory ... I forget the other two.

  Red Skelton

  Memories, Humorous, Loss

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