
“People understand that elders listen respectfully to everyone. There’s a place at their table for every person. But they know, too, that the elders have consistently been the best people to make important decisions. People are, therefore, comfortable deferring. Their dignity is not compromised, nor do they feel powerless or demeaned, because they are carrying out the decisions of the elders. They know the elders embody the wisdom of their ancestors, that without them they would never have gotten this far…”
On the role of elders in certain societies in “The Goal Now Has to Be to Listen: An Interview with Barry Lopez” https://www.thegeorgiareview.com/posts/the-goal-now-has-to-be-to-listen-an-interview-with-barry-lopez/ in The Georgia Review (2019 Feb 15)
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Barry Lopez 5
American writer 1945Related quotes


Twitter post, https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1076909133255852032 (23 December 2018)
Twitter Quotes (2018)

“They are trying to make an elder statesmen of me, but they will never succeed.”
Mr. Citizen, Harry Truman (1960)
Context: Student: Some people suggest that you are getting mellowed and less militant. Is that so?
Truman: Not in the slightest degree. They are trying to make an elder statesmen of me, but they will never succeed.

Adapted from a passage in Schools of Hellas http://www.archive.org/stream/schoolsofhellasa008878mbp#page/n105/mode/2up, the posthumously published dissertation of Kenneth John Freeman (1907). The original passage was a paraphrase of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. See the Quote Investigator article http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/.
see Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service, Edited by Suzy Platt, 1989, number 195 http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html. Last line: "Evidently, the quotation is spurious."
See also this Google Answers discussion http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104 about the topic.
Somewhat similar sentiments are in ( lines 961–985 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0241:card%3D961) of Aristophanes' The Clouds, a comedic play known for its caricature of Socrates. However, the lines are delivered by the character "Right" or "Just Discourse", not Socrates.
Misattributed

[Alexandria, Barabin, Rwanda King Kigeli V speaks at CSUN, 2005-11-01, California State University-Northridge, http://sundial.csun.edu/2005/11/rwandakingkigelivspeaksatcsun/, Daily Sundial, 2010-03-12]

The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be. The child seems happy all the time to the adult, because the adult knows that the child is untouched by the real problems of life; if the adult were similarly untouched he is sure that he would be happy. But children, not knowing that they are having an easy time, have a good many hard times. Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.

Flying Sikh': Indian sprinter Milkha Singh biopic set for release, 12 July 2013, 13 December 2013, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23241269,

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 94-98