“Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.”
Act V, scene i.
All Fools (1605)
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.”
Act V, scene i.
All Fools (1605)
“I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death.”
Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan
Destiny’s daughter (2007)
“Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.”
Augustus (-63–14 BC) founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire
“Young men," said Cæsar, "hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.”
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Cæsar Augustus
Roman Apophthegms
“Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?”
Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright
Phrixus, Frag. 830
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
Variant: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Source: Julius Caesar
Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground
Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 1, “Tufnell Park” (p. 5)
“Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN
Comparing Richard Nixon to Alben Barkley during the 1952 presidential race, as quoted in Richard Nixon: A Political and Personal Portrait (1959) by Earl Mazo, Chapter 7