“Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.”

"Age of Reason" https://archive.is/20130630002019/www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/22/071022fa_fact_krystal?currentPage=all by Arthur Krystal, The New Yorker (2007-10-22), p. 103

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Do you have more details about the quote "Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing." by Jacques Barzun?
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Jacques Barzun 46
Historian 1907–2012

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Context: We are told we must choose — the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new? It seems to me that one should always be seeking to talk oneself out of these stark oppositions.

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“Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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“Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.”

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