“A man is as old as his arteries, and as young as his ideas.”

— Will Durant

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 4 : On Old Age

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Will Durant 85

American historian, philosopher and writer 1885–1981

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices" http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Nobody+can+be+so+amusingly+arrogant+as+a+young+man+who+has+just+discovered+an+old+idea+and+thinks+it+is+his+own%22&pg=PA227#v=onepage
Strictly Personal (1953)

“It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction … in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

"How to make our ideas clear,” Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (January 1878)

“A young man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.”

William McFee (1881–1966) American writer

Harbours of Memory (1921), p. 236
Paraphrased variant: A man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.

“There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going."”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1783, p. 501
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "No young man honours an old man on account of his age without Allah decreeing for him one who will honour him in his old age."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 359
Sunni Hadith

“What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables