Being Old Quotes

All of a sudden you may realise that you are no longer young! And at that moment, you must also realise that by refusing getting old you can catch a chance to continue to be young! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Historical knowledge is a technique of the first order to preserve and continue a civilisation already advanced. Not that it affords positive solutions to the new aspect of vital conditions- life is always different from what it was- but that it prevents us committing the ingenuous mistakes of other times. But if, in addition to being old and, therefore, beginning to find life difficult, you have lost the memory of the past, and do not profit by experience, then everything turns to disadvantage. Well, it is my belief that this is the situation of Europe. The most "cultured" people to-day are suffering from incredible ignorance of history. ~ Ortega Y Gasset

At the close of my visit, my Hawaiian friends urged me strongly to publish my impressions and experiences, on the ground that the best books already existing, besides being old, treat chiefly of aboriginal customs and habits now extinct, and of the introduction of Christianity and subsequent historical events. ~ Isabella Bird

On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever. ~ J.P. Donleavy

Our goals can only be achieved with a society that respects and equally protects the rights of every human being, old and young, rich and poor, regardless of gender, color, race, or creed. We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or government as morally repugnant. ~ Ron Paul

But I suppose it's part of being old to feel that way, half in one world and half in the other, all of it mixed together in my mind. No one's left who even knows my name. Folks call me Auntie, on account of I never could have children of my own, and I guess that suits me fine. Sometime it's like I've got so many people inside of me I'm never alone at all. And when I go, I'll be taking them with me. ~ Justin Cronin

New houses, which are crap, because they don't build them the way they used to anymore. Old houses, which used to be good, because they were built back when they built them the way they used to, but which today, as a result of being old, are crap. So whichever kind of house you own, it's going to be some variety of crap, which means sooner or later everything in it will break. Dealing with broken things is the essence of home ownership, and it's exhausting. ~ Dave Barry

It is clear that when an immaterial entity is being referred to rather than a guiser, this figure is a conflation of perhaps a number of Pagan deities with the ecclesiastical principle of evil. The epithet 'old' ('auld' in Scots) prefixes many of the names given to this being: Old Nick, The Old 'un, The Old Lad, Old Scratch, Old Ragusan, Old Sam, Old Horny, Old Bargus, Old Bogy, Old Providence, The Auld Chiel and The Auld Gudeman. Old is clearly a reference to something ancient, most likely belief ~ Nigel Pennick

Showing joy by jumping up and down and clapping goes away at some point between pre-school and being old enough to go to orgies. ~ Dana Gould

Sometimes being young and confident is better than being old with experience ... when I was young I wasn't scared about anything ~ Thierry Henry

I'm comfortable being old ... being black ... being Jewish. ~ Billy Crystal

You know, I looked at my face in the mirror this morning, and I like being old. My face has more content and when I train in the gym now, I am not training to be strong or handsome - just better than I was yesterday. These days the race is just against myself. ~ Jean-Claude Van Damme

I guess if you're smart enough, you can do and say what you like and people just call you eccentric. It's like being old."
"Or rich," Alex said. ~ David Walton

I'm mad about being old and I'm mad about being American. Apart from that, OK. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Being vintage like a fine wine
Should make you proud of being old
And being mature like a cheese
Certainly explains the mould!
Fester on undaunted into your 7th decade ~ John Walter Bratton

sarcastic. It was a crack at him being old school and set in his ways. The Metro was new ~ Michael Connelly

Old is old at any age. Old is when you quit asking questions about this, that, and everything. Old is when you forget how to love-or worse, don't care. Old is when you don't want to dance anymore. Old is when you don't want to learn anything new except how to be old. Old is when people tell you that you are old-and you believe them. ~ Carew Papritz

If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There's a long, long time yet before fifty years ... millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here ... one hour less to live ... one hour gone away from all the hours of my life. ~ Betty Smith

I'm getting old, thought Eileen Calder. Old and worn out and cynical. And being cynical is a lot worse than being old or worn out. ~ Charles Sheffield

You spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young. Rules change along the way. The first things to go are those things you thought were eternal. ~ Douglas Coupland

If a woman holds on to this gift of being old while she is young and young while she is old, she will always know what comes next If she has lost it, she can yet reclaim it with some purposeful psychic work. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

What's the point of being old if you can't beleaguer the young with your vast stores of wisdom?

And what's the point of being young if you can't ignore all advice? ~ Laini Taylor

To those not yet old, being old means you've been. But being old also means that despite, in addition to, and in excess of your beenness, you still are. Your beenness is very much alive. You still are, and one is as haunted by the still-being and its fullness as by the having-already-been, by the pastness. Think of old age this way: it's just an everyday fact that one's life is at stake. ~ Philip Roth

He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. ~ John Piper

Somehow, throughout much of life, being old seems to be something that happens to other people. ~ Maggie Scarf

It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

The fear of old age is something that one feels when they're younger. Once you get to being old, you're already there, so you don't even think about it anymore. ~ Paolo Sorrentino

I think there's an interesting contradiction of having a young face and an old soul. There's something funny about it, and it also allows you to reinvent being old. ~ Matt Smith

I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old-or being young for that matter. ~ Katharine Hepburn

There was a succession of roommates, never chosen with her input and all with cognitive impairments. Some were quiet. One kept her up at night. She felt incarcerated, like she was in prison for being old. The ~ Atul Gawande

The tragedy of being old is you can no longer apply whats taken you so long to learn (Kissing The Beehive) ~ Jonathan Lethem

I'm looking forward to being old, to be able to accept what I am and become self-sufficient. Mid-forties is a good age and it's not too far away. ~ Stella Vine

While we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old! ~ Fanny Burney

Let me advise thee not to talk of thyself as being old. There is something in Mind Cure, after all, and if thee continually talks of thyself as being old, thee may perhaps bring on some of the infirmities of age. At least I would not risk it if I were thee. ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's Providence. ~ William Butler Yeats

We may be aware of small increments of getting older; we may meet an increasing number of people who make us uneasy with their youth; but the fact of being old ourselves comes as a surprise, and is often accompanied by the belief that there has been some mistake. ~ Terri E Apter

But whats the use of being old if you cant be dumb? ~ John O'Hara

The antithetical or perhaps mirror image to sadness is the experience, similarly unique to one's late years, of a swift, mysterious wave of happiness, also causeless, but of much shorter duration. I cannot remember a time, before my sixties, when the consciousness of happiness would sweep over me and, like a shower of cold water when one is desperately overheated, offer me a passing sensation very close to glee.
Both sadness and fleeting happiness relate, I think, to mortality, to the consciousness of being old and of nearing the end of life ... these sensations ... surge up from the unconscious, to be a gift of long life or fortunate old age. Both sadness and happiness, but sadness more, are related to the fact that nothing of all this will endure for long. [p. 179] ~ Carolyn G. Heilbrun

At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be. At thirty they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact, and if sensible, console themselves by remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which they may be learning to grow old gracefully. ~ Louisa May Alcott

I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don't have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don't want to do it. What a liberating word. ~ Bel Kaufman

There's something else that makes a woman interesting, something beyond being young or being old. And I'm going to find out what that something else is before I die, I hope. ~ Peter Lindbergh

Most people do not have a problem with being old. They have a problem with looking old. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

One cannot help being old, but one can resist being aged. ~ Samuel Hall Lord

A: Absorbed in our discussion of immortality, we had let night fall without lighting the lamp, and we couldn't see each other's faces. With an offhandedness or gentleness more convincing than passion would have been, Macedonio Fernandez' voice said once more that the soul is immortal. He assured me that the death of the body is altogether insignificant, and that dying has to be the most unimportant thing that can happen to a man. I was playing with Macedonio's pocketknife, opening and closing it. A nearby accordion was infinitely dispatching La Comparsita, that dismaying trifle that so many people like because it's been misrepresented to them as being old ... I suggested to Macedonio that we kill ourselves, so we might have our discussion without all that racket.
Z: (mockingly) But I suspect that at the last moment you reconsidered.
A: (now deep in mysticism) Quite frankly, I don't remember whether we committed suicide that night or not. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

I've been accused of being old before my time more than once. It's true that I've always felt an affinity for, and been comfortable around, older people. I attribute this to a childhood spent around my grandparents - and even a great-grandparent or two. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. ~ Jon Meacham

So, in the case of trees, being old doesn't mean being weak, bowed, and fragile. Quite the opposite, it means being full of energy and highly productive. This means elders are markedly more productive than young whippersnappers, and when it comes to climate change, they are important allies for human beings. ~ Peter Wohlleben

How much longer would we go on being old young people? They waved
goodbye to me. I was moved by Annette. She and I were
exactly the same age, and she'd become one of those slightly
faded Danish beauties who used to attract me when I was
twenty. They were older than I was at that time, and I was
grateful for their tender protection. ~ Patrick Modiano

We both young what made you grow younger."
"The music?"
He nodded and whispered. "You don't have to go back to being old. We'll practice all the time. We'll record albums and we'll tour. ~ David Agranoff

There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything. ~ Fran Lebowitz

Your boyfriend had a dream about potatoes and you're asking me to interpret it? I'm just old. Being old doesn't mean you know more; it means you ate enough fiber. ~ Jonathan Carroll

That was the trouble of being old. Your body no longer obeyed you. It did unruly and unreasonable things. An eye suddenly might not see for a moment. Your knees gave out at the wrong time, so that when you thought you were walking north, you might find yourself going a little northwest. Your brain, too, had that same flighty trick. You might be speaking of something and forget it temporarily, - your mind going off at a little to the northwest, too, so to speak. ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich

But there were other, vaguer, harder-to-pin-down feelings, like: a pit in the stomach that means something is either really good or really bad or both. A feeling of being old and young at once. A sense of beginnings and endings happening at the same time. A certainty that your life is changing, but an uncertainty about how it's changing and whether you want it to. ~ Pseudonymous Bosch

Being old enough to know better but still too young to resist mostly sucks. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

The best thing about being old is you don't have to worry about dieing young. ~ Stephen King

I think that I probably inevitably fetishize nature, although I try not to, because it's kind of embarrassing, repulsive behavior. I think it's just an extension of me being old-fashioned. ~ Phil Elvrum

This is a man with an old face, always old ... There was pathos, in his face, and in his eyes. The early weariness; and sometimes tears in his eyes, Which he let slip unconsciously on his cheek, Or brushed away with an unconcerned hand. There were tears for human suffering, or for a glance Into the vast futility of life, Which he had seen from the first, being old When he was born. ~ Edgar Lee Masters

I quite like being old. ~ Peter O'Toole

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.
That's what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again.
And just like that, you die. ~ Ruth Ozeki

The disaster of being old was in not feeling safe to venture anywhere, of seeing freedom put out of reach. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

the plight of being old: clearly recalling what it was like to act voluntarily and enjoy life as it came, now trapped in a frame that forbade anything except slow cautious movements ~ John Brunner

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I didn't mind getting old when I was young. It's the being old now that's getting to me. ~ John Scalzi

Being old is such a treat! ~ Shirley Maclaine

Fundamental rights belong to the human being just because you are a human being. ~ Desmond Tutu

A person without self-confidence is incapable of being independent, and people who are dependent on their partners always create unhappiness. Always. ~ Ryu Murakami

Being needed was a handy trick. It could fill you up so full you never even noticed all the places that were empty. ~ Deb Caletti

Since being quite young, I've had a very strong sense of independence and survival. As a child, I was on my own two feet emotionally. ~ Lena Headey

Knowing what to do with time is the key to being productive ~ Sunday Adelaja

I think of myself as only being an actress when I'm acting, but my friends will say I act all the time. ~ Marian Seldes

While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president, let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice. ~ Harvey Fierstein

We do ourselves a big favor not to be scared of growing old, but to embrace the mixed bag that the years have to offer, however severe the losses. ~ John Leland

The worst form of snobbery is to deny information; to anyone at all. Always remember that. Bas as it is to look down on another human being: to act as censor? Unforgivable. ~ Matthew Blakstad

Often expecting immediate returns for goodness in this world is a sign of a normal human being ~ Adil Adam Memon

Remain humble and you will be recognized for that. Sometimes being graceful is just as attractive as notoriety, for the goodness you create. ~ Ron Baratono

I don't mind exercise but it's a private activity. Joggers should run in a wheel - like hamsters - because I don't want to look at them. And I really hate people who go on an airplane in jogging outfits. That's a major offense today, even bigger than Spandex bicycle pants. You see eighty-year-old women coming on the plane in jogging outfits for comfort. Well my comfort - my mental comfort - is completely ruined when I see them coming. You're on an airplane, not in your bedroom, so please! And I really hate walkathons: blocking traffic, people patting themselves on the back. The whole attitude offends me. They have this smug look on their faces as they hold you up in traffic so that they can give two cents to some charity. ~ John Waters

Art is craft: all art is always and essentially a work of craft: but in the true work of art, before the craft and after it, is some essential durable core of being, which is what the craft works on, and shows, and sets free. The statue in the stone. How does the artist find that, see it, before it's visible? That is a real question. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

And do you know a funny thing? I'm almost fifty years old and I've never understood anything in my whole life. ~ Richard Yates

But won't this be unfair to the people?" "Being ruler is the only thing my brother truly cares about. Only when he is brought to his knees will he repent from what he has done to me." "I see. And the completion time for this curse?" "Indefinite. As long as it takes. Oh, and by the way, Kaysan needs to have unending life. I don't want him dying and getting out of this that easily. ~ L.R.W. Lee

The purpose of life is to be happy by being useful to others. Always have the inborn sense of wonder and enjoy the wonderful universe every moment with great love and great affection. ~ Debasish Mridha

He settled his big hands on her hips. He let them slide slowly down to cup her ass which she had jammed into a Spanx hide and seek high rise panty. Before slipping on the slinky purple faux wrap dress that her daughter had given her after surviving being held at gunpoint together gift the prior fall. Stella was fairly sure she would enjoy the sensation of Goat's strong fingers kneading her flesh if it hadn't gotten numb in its fierce polyester lycra prison hours ago. ~ Sophie Littlefield

Tell him I said that he will know when he's my age that books aren't written on whims or old promises. Books are written on years turned inside out by ideas that never let go until you get them in print, and even then writing's a last resort, a desperate ransom you pay to get your life back. ~ Richard Bach

I got the message. All of us get the message, sooner or later. If you get it before it's too late or before you're too old, you'll pull through all right. ~ Nat King Cole

Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people. ~ Elizabeth Moon

they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one's story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone's lives. Inevitably, ~ Atul Gawande

One of my prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. ~ Lemony Snicket

Meditation is the way to develop our natural healing abilities. Healing comes originally from our inner being, from the inner source of silence and wholeness. In the silence, we can let go of all our problems, frustrations, fears, anger and sorrow. Healing happens when we bring everything that we find inside ourselves out into the light. Healing is to embrace and accept everything that we find inside ourselves without judgment or evaluation. Healing happens when we discover an unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves as we are with both our light and dark sides. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

We had a lot to do with Randy being fired. If we were to do a lot better, then it probably wouldn't have happened. ~ Allen Iverson

In modern physics, there is no such thing as "nothing." Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed. The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy. ~ Richard Morris

Women will continue to sacrifice being liked for being successful. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force. ~ Eckhart Tolle

To an omniscient being, nothing in all of Creation can be original, fashionable, or even distinct, as every event, thought, action, adventure and discovery is occurring simultaneously in one stretched-out moment. To be omniscient means to have never felt even the slightest twang of curiosity, for there can be no unexpected twists if every outcome to every drama and experiment is already known. Without the capacity for curiosity it is, therefore, impossible for the omniscient being to be interested in anything, let alone be attentive to His own pleasure, as pleasure is inaccessible if all of Creation is, from His great perspective, perfectly flat and of a uniform temperature. ~ John Zande

Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. ~ John Milton

He had never taken such dislike to a man before and immediately felt guilty about it. He remembered his old tutor at theological college telling him, 'There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. We need to remember this about ourselves when we think of others. ~ James Runcie

You can keep yourself alive. That's the magic of being an actor. ~ Sonia Braga

His father had been so seriously wounded, at Vimiera, that he was invalided home and placed on half pay; and in the same battle Captain O'Grady lost his left arm but, on its being cured, returned to his place in the regiment. ~ G.A. Henty

What we need to wake people up to now is the crisis in imagination and concern for the greater good. We have no idea what the next ten years, much less the next fifty years, will demand of the coming generation. What we do know is that unless we have a people prepared and eager to meet those crises creatively and compassionately, there is not much hope for this poor old planet of ours. ~ Katherine Paterson

The old saying is true enough. The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. ~ Marta Perry

I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it - the music that went along with it. ~ Mike Shinoda

He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, ~ Oscar Wilde

I believe in free love and that's just how I feel. It's just my experience of being with different kinds of men and being born without a preference for a certain type of person. For me, that is my story in finding love in lots of different people, and that's been the second biggest influence in my music. ~ Lana Del Rey