Quotes about age
A collection of quotes on the topic of age, time, timing, life.
Best quotes about age
“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.”
“I know not age, nor weariness nor defeat.”
“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.”
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.”
“I've aged, but I don't think I've grown up.”
Guardian interview 3 Nov 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/nov/03/1
“Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.”
Source: The Poet and the Donkey: A Novel
“To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.”
On his 85th birthday, as quoted in The Observer [London] (21 August 1955)
“We are always the same age inside.”
As quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946
Quotes about age
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
Fictional attribution in the movie The Emperor's Club (2002), given by Kevin Kline (as William Hundert); also attributed to Diogenes, without sources; no published occurrences of this statement prior to the movie have been located in any of the Aristophanes Plays or Fragments.
Misattributed
Source: IMDb, "Memorable quotes for The Emperor's Club" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283530/quotes, Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com
Source: Two pages attributing it to Diogenes: http://www.prohibitionists.org/Background/Party_Platform/quickquotes/QQ-education.htm http://www.ryanbalton.com/funstuff/forb_seniorquotes.htm
Quoted in: Ingo F. Walther (1996), Picasso, p. 67.
Attributed from posthumous publications
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 14
Page 94
Testimony (1979)
Preface.
The Turning Point (1982)
Quote in a letter to , September 1879; as cited in The Private Lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, pp. 202-203; also partly cited in: Jane Kinsman, Michael Pantazzi, National Gallery of Australia. Degas: the uncontested master, National Gallery of Australia, 7 apr. 2009. p. 25
1870 - 1890
Context: I am absolutely sickened with and demoralized by this life, I've been leading for so long. When you get to my age, there is nothing more to look forward to. Unhappy we are, unhappy we'll stay. Each day brings its tribulations and each day difficulties arise... So I'm giving up the struggle once and for all, abandoning all hope of success... I hear my friends are preparing another exhibition this year [the Impressionists, in Paris, 1880] but I'm ruling out the possibility of participating in it, as I just don't have anything worth showing.
"Queen: Live at Wembley" (1986), shortly before performing "Who Wants To Live Forever." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNJ1SQpxFI
Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5.
As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, '.
Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters
from "The cradle snatchers", article by Frank Worrall, Melody Maker (3 September 1983)
In interviews etc., About life and death
The Historian's Craft, pg.36
Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 33
Context: Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.
“Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.”
As quoted in Eternal Greece (1961) by Rex Warner, p. 34
Context: Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.
“If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.”
Quoted allegedly "From da Vinci`s Notes" in Jon Wynne-Tyson: The Extended Circle. A Dictionary of Humane Thought. Centaur Press 1985, p. 65 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=1mMbAQAAIAAJ&q=murder.
Actually the quote is not authentic but made up from a novel by Dmitri Merejkowski (w:Dmitry Merezhkovsky) entitled "The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci" (La Résurrecton de Dieux 1901), translated from Russian into English by Herbert Trench. G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press. There, in Book (i.e. chapter) VI, entitled The Diary of Giovanni Boltraffio, one finds the following:
The master [Leonardo da Vinci] permits harm to no living creatures, not even to plants. Zoroastro http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Masini tells me that from an early age he has abjured meat, and says that the time shall come when all men such as he will be content with a vegetable diet, and will think on the murder of animals as now they think on the murder of men ( p. 226 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=g_pa0OaYX64C&pg=PA226).
However, despite the quote's false attribution, da Vinci was in fact a vegetarian.
Misattributed
“It was at that age
that poetry came in search of me.”
Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19
Osho, And The Flowers Showered (2003), , p. 204
Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 217
Jedes Zeitalter wird, wenn es historischen Rang hat, von Aristokratien gestaltet.
Aristokratie = die Besten herrschen.
Niemals regieren Völker sich selbst. Diesen Wahnsinn hat der Liberalismus erfunden. Hinter seiner Volkssouveränität verstecken sich nur die gerissensten Schelme, die nicht erkannt sein wollen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
Philosophy degree (1783), in: The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrinces of the Illuminati, ed. by Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner, Lewis Masonic 2015, p. 364.
Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)
2011, UN speech to General Assembly (September 2011)
Source: Radical Middle (2004), Chapter 3, "Journey to the Radical Middle," p. 22.
quora.com https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-stance-on-the-Arab-Israeli-conflict
Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 241, 253
Opening, The Network is the Message, p. 1
The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001)
“Our tragic age demands poetry of courage and not whimpers about the inevitable end of all maya.”
Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,
“All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.”
An Incident in a Railroad Car
“I have always said about Tony [Benn] that he immatures with age.”
Interview with The Times (7 April 1981), p. 12.
Post-Prime Ministerial
Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 37.
122, in Moral Exhortation (1986), p. 33
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 10: Epicurus
“Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.”
L'Envers du music hall (Music Hall Sidelights), "On Tour" (1913)
1997 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOss3w1LH1g
What US leaders have never understood about Iran http://nypost.com/2015/07/19/what-us-leaders-have-never-understood-about-iran/, New York Post (July 19, 2015).
New York Post
Bk. 3, no. 51; pp. 70-71.
Variae
'Comrades in Struggle' (June 1938).
Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3
“He had reached the age when the future ceases to be a rosy blur and becomes actual and menacing.”
Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3
Ball's diary entry, 1916; as quoted in Looking at Dada, eds. Sarah Ganz Blythe & Edward D. Powers - The Museum of Modern Art New York, ISBN: 087070-705-1; p. 3
1916
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages — they haven't ended yet.”
Closing lines
Deadeye Dick (1982)
He could only write it because he was not dependent on State aid.
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (13 October 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/ http://alexpeak.com/twr/ooc/#2</sup>
As I Please (1943–1947)
Chap. 11 (Psychotherapists or the Clergy), p. 229 http://books.google.com/books?id=mAsPAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Among+all+my+patients+in+the+second+half+of+life+that+is+to+say+over+thirty+five+there+has+not+been+one+whose+problem+in+the+last+resort+was+not+that+of+finding+a+religious+outlook+on+life%22&pg=PA229#v=onepage
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)
1963 interview, used in The Century of the Self (2002)
Context: My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call "happiness." There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad.
"Letter to Menoeceus" http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html, as translated in Stoic and Epicurean (1910) by Robert Drew Hicks, p. 167
Variant translation: Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let him not become weary of the study; for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late. So that both young and old should study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old, he many be young in good things through the pleasing recollection of the past, and the other in order that he may be at the same time both young and old, in consequence of his absence of fear for the future.
Context: Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards attaining it.
“I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.”
As quoted in Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy (1987) by Géza von Molnár, p. 2
Context: I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance
Throughout my being's limitless expanse,
Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages
I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.
“Dissents speak to a future age.”
Interview with Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio (May 2, 2002)
Context: Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.
Deeds Rather Than Words (1963)
Context: To me, today, at age sixty-one, all prayer, by the humble or highly placed, has one thing in common: supplication for strength and inspiration to carry on the best human impulses which should bind us together for a better world. Without such inspiration, we would rapidly deteriorate and finally perish. But in our troubled time, the right of men to think and worship as their conscience dictates is being sorely pressed. We can retain these privileges only by being constantly on guard and fighting off any encroachment on these precepts. To retreat from any of the principles handed down by our forefathers, who shed their blood for the ideals we still embrace, would be a complete victory for those who would destroy liberty and justice for the individual.
Review of Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell in The Adelphi (January 1939); Paraphrased variant: Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
Context: If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger — and that in effect is what Mr Russell is saying — have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter.
Wear and Tears (tableu of a ageless world)
Specters of Marx (1993)
Context: The time is out of joint. The world is going badly. It is worn but its wear no longer counts. Old age or youth-one no longer counts in that way. The world has more than one age. We lack the measure of the measure. We no longer realize the wear, we no longer take account of it as of a single age in the progress of history. Neither maturation, nor crisis, nor even agony. Something else. What is happening is happening to age itself, it strikes a blow at the teleological order of history. What is coming, in which the untimely appears, is happening to time but it does not happen in time. Contretemps. The time is out of joint. Theatrical speech, Hamlet's speech before the theater of the world, of history, and of politics. The age is off its hinges. Everything, beginning with time, seems out of kilter, unjust, dis-adjusted. The world is going very badly, it wears as it grows, as the Painter also says at the beginning of Timon of Athens (which is Marx's play, is it not). For, this time, it is a painter's speech, as if he were speaking of a spectacle or before a tableau: "How goes the world?-It wears, sir, as it grows.
“Age is not a problem. It's only a number. ”
Interview with Euronews' Claudio Rocco in 2011; as quoted in " Science says 'ciao' to Italy's Margherita Hack: the 'lady of the stars'", euronews.com (1 July 2013) https://www.euronews.com/2013/07/01/science-says-ciao-to-italy-s-margherita-hack-the-lady-of-the-stars.
My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes
Politics and the English Language (1946)
Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 107
“I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.”
Variant: I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived.
Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
“the greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.”
Source: The Prayer Of The Frog, Vol. 1
“We live in an age when it is cheaper to buy the rights to movies than to make them.”
“Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.”
Trotzky's Diary in Exile — 1935 (1958)
“We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray