“In cities the old are more corrupt than the young.”
Les vieillards, dans les capitales, sont plus corrompus que les jeunes gens.
Maximes et Pensées, #585
Maxims and Considerations
Original
Les vieillards, dans les capitales, sont plus corrompus que les jeunes gens.
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Nicolas Chamfort 54
French writer 1741–1794Related quotes
“To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.”
On the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1899); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.”
Almost certainly attributable to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who is, in various sources, credited with having said this in letters to Harriet Beecher Stowe (who turned 70 in 1881) and Julia Ward Howe (who turned 70 in 1889), as well as having made the commented about himself. Holmes, Sr. reached the age of 70 in 1879, while Holmes, Jr. reached that age in 1911, some time after the earliest reports of this quote.
Misattributed
“Chicago is not the most corrupt American city, it's the most theatrically corrupt.”
The Dick Cavett Show (9 June 1978)
Book 1; On the necessity of standards
Mozi
Context: All states in the world, large or small, are cities of Heaven, and all people, young or old, honourable or humble, are its subjects; for they all graze oxen and sheep, feed dogs and pigs, and prepare clean wine and cakes to sacrifice to Heaven. Does this not mean that Heaven claims all and accepts offerings from all? Since Heaven does claim all and accepts offerings from all, what then can make us say that it does not desire men to love and benefit one another? Hence those who love and benefit others Heaven will bless. Those who hate and harm others Heaven will curse, for it is said that he who murders the innocent will be visited by misfortune. How else can we explain the fact that men, murdering each other, will be cursed by Heaven? Thus we are certain that Heaven desires to have men love and benefit one another and abominates to have them hate and harm one another
“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.”
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
On US government spending. Interview on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 01/03/1975 as shown on YouTube The Tonight Show video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmnmdtcdcg
1970s
Time is an Artist (1978) Epilogue : Old is Beautiful http://taimur.sarangi.info/text/kaufmann_time.htm
Context: Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. But the notion that old means ugly is every bit as harmful as the prejudice that black is ugly. In one way it is even more pernicious.
The notion that only what is new and young is beautiful poisons our relationship to the past and to our own future. It keeps us from understanding our roots and the greatest works of our culture and other cultures. It also makes us dread what lies ahead of us and leads many to shirk reality.