Old age

“ It was as if old age had come upon them lightly, bringing with it no burden of sadness, and that their days of work long over, they were content to lie idle in the kind warm sun, and to tell stories of the past. ”

“ The ability to hold mentally the picture of youth in all its glory, vivacity and splendor has a powerful influence in restraining the old age processes.
Old age begins in the heart. When the heart grows cold the skin grows old, and the appearances of age impress themselves on the body. The mind becomes blighted, the ideals blurred, and the juices of life congealed. ”

“ Life has its fixed course, and nature one unvarying way; each age has assigned to it what best suits it, so that the fickleness of boyhood, the sanguine temper of youth, the soberness of riper years, and the maturity of old age, equally have something in harmony with nature, which ought to be made availing in its season. ”

“ Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination? ”

“ And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise comprehend. ”

“ And, if they have grown upon it, the uncomfortable conviction arises that they will continue to grow and darken more and more its life-giving face. Old age is certainly being written on the solar brow. ”

“ Ripe old age, cheerful, useful, and understanding, is one of the finest influences in the world. We hang Rembrandt's or Whistler's picture of his mother on our walls that we may feel its quieting hand, the sense of peace and achievement which the picture carries. We have no better illustration of the meaning of old age. ”

“ From old age I only ask the experience which it gives by degrees. 'Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait!' says the proverb. I wish to preserve for a hundred years the strength of a young man, and to acquire the knowledge of an old one. ”

“ Henceforth he knows what his powers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors of service clear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of effort, put them at their best. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility, not satiety, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity. ”

“ It is so silly of people—I don't mean you, for you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better—but it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. ”

“ A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:
"But we are pressed by heavy laws; ”

“ What I feel is a premature old age, caused by the strong passions and conflicts of my early life. It is the languor and indifference of old age, without its wisdom, or its well-earned right to repose. Sweetie, wasn't the bonnet letter hideous? ”

“ Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one. ”

“ Before we advert to the nature of our adaptations for this period of life, we must draw a distinction between age and "premature old age." The former is the decline of nature, which must always take place, whilst the latter is the result of disease or improper habits. ”

“ And in those moments of depression of which he had his full share, when old age seemed to mock him with all its futility and feebleness, it was the thought that the children still loved him which nerved him again to continue his life-work, which renewed his youth, so that to his friends he never seemed an old man. ”

“ I warned all young people off the premises when I began my notes referring to old age. I must be equally fair with old people now. They are earnestly requested to leave this paper to young persons from the age of twelve to that of fourscore years and ten, at which latter period of life I am sure that I shall have at least one youthful reader. You know well enough what I mean by youth and age; - something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the grass a thousand feet above it. ”

“ Old Age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first;
Weak, sickly, full of pains, in every breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death; ”

“ When we are young we lay up for old age; when we are old we save for death; ”

“ And want can quench the eye’s bright grace,
Nor does old age a wrinkle trace
More deeply than despair. ”

“ So that he had an official career lasting the number of years which our ancestors defined as coming between birth and the beginning of old age. Moreover, that last period of his old age was more blessed than that of his middle life, inasmuch as he had greater influence and less labour. For the crowning grace of old age is influence. ”

“ Though perceived as a flash on the surface, this is a pulse of health that, having made youth perfect, can recreate maturity and old age. Everything that exists is holy, or at least demonic, when seen as a new and solitary portent ”

“ Now, most of these traits belong more to the ideal of old age than to that of any earlier period in life. The most advanced regimen and hygiene of to-day—personal, mental, moral, social, political, judicial, and even religious—have little better to suggest for old age, in which all the qualities here implied should culminate, bringing poise and philosophic calm. ”

“ I was witnessing the reactions of a nineteen-year-old girl who had never before seen the ravages of old age, and I could not but wonder if the subconscious effect of old age on youth accustomed to seeing it was not similar. ”

“ My dear Laelius and Scipio, we must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit, but not to overload, our strength. Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more. ”

“ They should endeavor to learn to live along a line of steady development; to keep themselves in the forefront of thought and endeavor; to repudiate old age as more a matter of want of will than of necessity—and so abjure a statement I have recently heard from a young physician—that the only disease for which there is no remedy is old age. There is a remedy in living en rapport with the subtle forces of growth. ”

“ We certainly have not yet heard the last word from zoölogy which, while stressing the hereditary factors, for example, and individual longevity, must admit that old age in general is a more or less acquired character. ”

“ And youth runs away from old age, because it is its most cruel enemy. ”

“ Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth; ”

“ It seems more than possible that true old age—the slow and natural decay of the body apart from inherited flaw—would be free from very many, if not all, of the petty miseries which now render extreme age a doubtful blessing. ”

“ Let us glance briefly at the public and private provisions in different lands for the care of the aged, another large topic with a literature of its own. Here, too, we find great diversity of method and theory which it would be premature to attempt to harmonize. Indeed, so limited is our present knowledge of old age that the available data here also open rather than close most of the great questions about it, although we do seem to be at the beginning of a new era regarding this stage of life. ”

“ While I am dwelling upon this, and tracing out the gradual change from infancy to youth, from youth to perfect growth, from that to age, and thinking, with an old man’s pride, that she is comely yet, I feel a slight thin hand upon my arm, and, looking down, see seated at my feet a crippled boy,—a gentle, patient child,—whose aspect I know well. ”

“ One morning while brushing his hair he will see a gray hair, and, however young he may be, the anticipation of old age will come to him. A solitary old age! A senility dependent for its social and domestic requirements on condescending nephews and nieces, or even more distant relations! ”

“ OLD age is courteous—no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, "Walk in, sir, pray!"
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed.
And then they cry "A cool one, indeed!" ”

“ As a general truth, as it seems to me, it is weariness of all pursuits that creates weariness of life. There are certain pursuits adapted to childhood: do young men miss them? There are others suited to early manhood: does that settled time of life called "middle age" ask for them? There are others, again, suited to that age, but not looked for in old age. There are, finally, some which belong to Old age. Therefore, as the pursuits of the earlier ages have their time for disappearing, so also have those of old age. And when that takes place, a satiety of life brings on the ripe time for death. ”

“ Whatever poet, orator, or sage May say of it, old age is still old age. ”

“ Again, there is no fixed borderline for old age, and you are making a good and proper use of it as long as you can satisfy the call of duty and disregard death. The result of this is, that old age is even more confident and courageous than youth. ”

“ Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty." ”

“ Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it. Fruits are most welcome when almost over; youth is most charming at its close; the last drink delights the toper, – the glass which souses him and puts the finishing touch on his drunkenness. 5. Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains. Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline. ”

“ Beautiful is old age—beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. In the old man, nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with her blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful. ”

“ There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'—Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? ”

“ If you really wish to stay the old age processes you must change your thoughts. Erase everything that has to do with age from your mind. Visualize youthful conditions. Say to yourself, "God is my life. ”

“ What have looks, or tones, to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of the heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that “they themselves are old?” ”

“ How and at what age did you first realize the approach of old age?
This realization not infrequently begins in the forties and increases thereafter, often intensively with the beginning of each new decade. The first sign of baldness, the first touch of fatigue at stated tasks, lapse of memory for names, waning potency in men; and the first gray hairs, wrinkles, fading of complexion, and change of figure, etc., in women are often specified in our returns. ”