quotations about age
Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.
MUHAMMAD ALI
Jet Magazine, Aug. 1992
Age does announce itself in interesting ways. Much has been written about nose hair and ear hair and diminishing hairlines and I suppose that's all fair and true. But far more importantly, and with far graver implications, I simply cannot drink any more. In the old days at a party I might manage a bottle of wine by myself and carry on as though nothing had happened, but these days such an endeavour would be truly cavalier. Hell is the bloating and the headache; the day-long regret; the bitter self-recrimination; the terrible when-will-you-ever-grow-up self-loathing. It's just not worth it. I've also taken to that older person's trick of wondering what the hell is up with the youngsters. To be serious for a moment: what the actual hell is up with the youngsters? Why are they such entitled little s***s?
ALEXANDER PARKER
"VRROOM WITH A VIEW: Age makes one appreciate the finer things in life", Business Day, March 8, 2016
Advances in anti-ageing therapies and in estimating biological age raise big questions for society, both at an individual level and in the public and private sectors. We should not be frightened of them, but we should start talking about these changes now, before they arrive.
DAVID CLANCY
"We all age at different speeds -- and scientists have worked out how to calculate it", The Conversation, July 7, 2015
Age is but a comparison.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Age is not the enemy. Neither is the passage of time. It is the collateral damage ... that creates a problem for us.
JOHN KOESSLER
The Radical Pursuit of Rest: Escaping the Productivity Trap
If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is the epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.
KURT VONNEGUT
Deadeye Dick
All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Ponkapog Papers
Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
I used to think that age would bring wisdom. It doesn't, it just brings confusion. But I find that this confusion is artistically useful. It's a kind of progression, a negative progression. It's moving into areas that you didn't know were there. It becomes more dreamlike all the time.
JOHN BANVILLE
"Oblique dreamer", The Guardian, September 17, 2000
Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Age is an "umbrella" variable under which various changes in people's lives are subsumed.
P. MATTHIJS BAL
"A lifespan perspective on psychological contracts and their relations with organizational commitment", Age in the Workplace: Challenges and Opportunities
Age overtakes us all; Our temples first; then on o'er cheek and chin, Slowly and surely, creep the frosts of Time. Up and do somewhat, ere thy limbs are sere.
THEOCRITUS
"The Love of Thyonichus"
I am past thirty, and three parts iced over.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
letter to Arthur Hugh Clough, Feb. 12, 1853
What we think of as old has changed over time, and it will need to continue changing in the future as people live longer, healthier lives.
YAGANA SHAH
"60, Not 50, Is The New Middle Age, Study Says", Huffington Post, April 16, 2015
The first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Counsels and Maxims
Do not cast yourself aside as you grow old!
JURIETTA MCCALL & CLIFF DEMPSTER
Living Well as You Age: Turning Challenges into Opportunities