As people grow older they come at length to live so much in memory that they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest blessings.
 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (1872). copy citation

Context

“no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains,—“I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.” —As people grow older they come at length to live so much in memory that they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest blessings. Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered. The friend we love best may sometimes weary us by his presence or vex us by his infirmities. How sweet to think of him as he will be to us after we have outlived him ten or a dozen years!” source