"The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."
— H.L. Mencken

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
— Herbert Hoover

"Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all."
— Bob Dylan (Chronicles: Volume One)

"No one who is young is ever going to be old."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

" And then I laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it's all I an do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?
It's like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this IS home."
— Sara Gruen

"Don't you know that love isn't just going to bed? Love isn't an act, it's a whole life. It's staying with her now because she needs you; it's knowing you and she will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures -- when all that's on the shelf and done with. Love -- why, I'll tell you what love is: it's you at seventy-five and her at seventy-one, each of you listening for the other's step in the next room, each afraid that a sudden silence, a sudden cry, could mean a lifetime's talk is over."
— Brian Moore

"But I won't bore you any longer on the subject of old men. It won't make things any better and all my plans of revenge (such as disconnecting the lamp, shutting the door, hiding his clothes) must be abandoned in order to keep the peace. Oh, I'm becoming so sensible! ..."
— Anne Frank

"That's the trouble with you young people. You think because you ain't been here long, you know everything. In my life I already forgot more than you ever know."
— Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)

"Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain."
— Kabir (The Bijak of Kabir)

"Remember the days when you let your child have some chocolate if he finished his cereal? Now, chocolate is one of the cereals."
— Robert Orben

"All you have to do is speak up.
Tell him straight up: "I need you here to protect and provide for us, to give us security in our lives, to help raise these children, to set an example for this boy, who needs to see what real men do, and for this girl, who needs to know what a real man is so she can find one of her own someday. I need you to be the head of this family."
Lay it out like this, and your requirements will trump his mother's every time."
— Steve Harvey (Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment)

"as jolaha ka maram na jana, jinh jag ani pasarinhh tana;
dharti akas dou gad khandaya, chand surya dou nari banaya;
sahastra tar le purani puri, ajahu bine kathin hai duri;
kahai kabir karm se jori, sut kusut bine bhal kori;


No one could understand the secret of this weaver who, coming into existence, spread the warp as the world; He fixed the earth and the sky as the pillars, and he used the sun and the moon as two shuttles; He took thousands of stars and perfected the cloth; but even today he weaves, and the end is difficult to fathom.

Kabir says that the weaver, getting good or bad yarn and connecting karmas with it, weaves beautifully. "
— Kabir (The Bijak of Kabir)

"In our opposed forms of loneliness and self-recognition and recognition of the other, we touched each other often as we spoke; and on shore in explorations of the past, we strolled with our arms linked..."
— Harold Brodkey (Profane Friendship)

"Longevity-and sanity. Eccentric old ladies on Harleys I can deal with."
— Alison Larkin (The English American: A Novel)

"Dream Song:

The heavens
Go with me. "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"Dream Song:

As my eyes
Search the prairie,
I feel the summer in the spring.
Whenever I pause
The noise
Of the village. "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"Song on Applying War Paint:

At the center of the earth
I stand,
Behold me!
At the wind center
I stand,
Behold me!
A root of medicine
Therefore I stand,
At the wind center
I stand. "
— Frances Densmore

"A Second Childhood.”

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.

Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.

Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.

Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.

Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And I find that I am not dead.

A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.

Strange crawling carpets of the grass,
Wide windows of the sky;
So in this perilous grace of God
With all my sins go I:
And things grow new though I grow old,
Though I grow old and die."
— G.K. Chesterton (The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton)

"Well, now and then, for no good reason a man can figure out, life will just haul off and knock him flat."
— Jim Coates

"I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore."
— Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)

""Now that I am alone, I don't have to hide it; I don't have to hide anything any longer. I can let my face go because no one can see me; because there's twenty-one thousand feet between me and them... No, I don't have to press my teeth together or tighten the muscles of my jaw...""
— Roald Dahl

"A heart never created hatred; speech created hatred."
— Sumerian Proverb

""Older people shouldn't eat health food, they need all the preservatives they can get." "
— Robert Orben

"He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living hand to mouth."
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Pictures that don't make sense are magic. they hold balls of light covered in millions of spells swirled into a cell."
— Alexa Kitchen

"Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:

Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.

Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.

Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.

I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.

Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.

Amen"
— Margot Benary-Isbert

"Dream Song of Thunders:

Sometimes
I go about pitying
Myself,
While I am carried by the wind
Across the sky. "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"How can you respect the world when you see it's being run by a bunch of kids turned old?"
— John Updike (Rabbit Is Rich)

"Steam Lodge Song of the Sun Dance Ceremony:

A voice,
I will send.
Hear me!
The land
All over,
A voice
I am sending!
Hear me!
I will live! "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"Song after Battle:

As the young men went by
I was looking for him.
It surprises me anew
That he has gone.
It is something
To which I cannot be reconciled.

Owls hoot at me.
Owls hoot at me.
That is what I hear
In my life.
Wolves howl at me.
Wolves howl at me.
That is what I hear
In my life.

-American Indian Songs"
— Frances Densmore

"What matters is we're all going to DIE maybe.
"
— cant remember

""In later life most good things happen very slowly; only bad things tend to happen fast." "
— Mark Edmundson

"The new is not revealed to those whose eyse are fastened in worship upon the old. "
— Albert Pinkham Ryder

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Isaiah 41:10"
— Various (Holy Bible)

""Alah bisa karena biasa."

Practise makes perfect.
Meaning: If we practice enough, we can do really well.
"
— not now

"tahiya hote pavan nahin pani, tahiya srishti kown utpati;
tahiya hote kali nahin phula, tahiya hote garbh nahi mula;
tahiya hote vidya nahin Veda, tahiya hote shabd nahin swada;
tahiya hote pind nahin basu,
nahin dhar dharni na pavan akasu;
tahiya hote guru nahin chela, gamya agamya na panth duhela.

Sakhi: avigati ki gati ka kahown, jake gawn na thawn
gun bihuna pekhana, ka kahi lijai nawn

In that state there is no air or water, and no creation or creator; There is no bud or flower, and no fetus or semen; There is no education or Vedas, and no word or taste; There is no body or settlement, and no earth, air or space; There is no guru or disciple, and no easy or difficult path.

Sakhi: That state is very strange. I cannot explain it. It has no village or resting place. That state is without gunas (qualities). What name can on give it? "
— Kabir (The Bijak of Kabir)

""It will never do to lose your head" She thought as she bandaged Rena's torn knee."
— Eliana Giiova Voiciere

"I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older."
— Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room)

"We were young. Everyone was young in those days. That’s the main complaint you hear from people who are getting old. You stop seeing young people. You begin to wonder if there are any left and whether there were only young people when you were young."
— Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)

"There was a time I was out there. I was hip. I was dangerous. The zeitgeist blew from me!"
— Eddie Monsoon