Quotes About Aging

They looked ruined and decrepit, the sort of men who'd soon turn into empty chairs.

On describing balding - wild emigrating hair

A twenty-three-year-long study in Ohio determined that people who saw growing older as something positive lived a whopping seven and a half years longer than those who didn't. (356)

From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

Every year his world felt like it got a little smaller. Maybe that was just the way things went as people aged.

Time passes irrevocably.

Time carries all things, even our wits, away.

I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.

There are some books that LIVE, she mused. They are young with us, and they grow old with us.

Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older or Cam either. These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as the way they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into long-legged monsters.

Ah well, so be it. The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent's Park, and holding his hat in hand, was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.

When she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better--her husband; money; his books. But for her own part she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade difficulties, or slur over duties

Punctuality is one of the minor virtues which we do not acquire until later in life.

He looked very old. He looked, James thought, getting his head now against the Lighthouse, now against the waste of waters running away into the open, like some old stone lying on the sand; he looked as if he had become physically what was always at the back of both of their minds—that loneliness which was for both of them the truth about things.

The compensation of growing old...was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained - at last! - the power which adds the supreme flavor to existence, - the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.

Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older! or Cam either. These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into long-legged monsters. Nothing made up for the loss. When she read just now to James, and there were numbers of soldiers with kettle-drums and trumpets, and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow up, and lose all that?

She would not say of anyone in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

At last the door opened stealthily. Ellen, the discreet black maid, stood behind Mrs. Chinnery's chair, waiting. Mrs. Chinnery pretended to ignore her, but the others were glad to stop. Ellen stepped forward and Mrs. Chinnery, submitting, was wheeled off to the mysterious upper chamber of extreme old age. Her pleasure was over.

now that one was mature then, said Peter, one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year. It increased, he said, alas, perhaps, but one should be glad of it-- it went on increasing in his experience.

How terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the centre.

What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years.