Lastingness Quotes

“in Hebrew, where the word for “old,” zaken, is an acronym formed from the expression, zeh kanah hokhmah, literally, “this one has acquired wisdom.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“expression, zeh kanah hokhmah, literally, “this one has acquired wisdom.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“In this regard, perhaps, the artist has a better chance of engaged old age than the retired business executive; once an “occupation’s gone”—Othello’s great lament—our satisfaction in the workaday world is also effectively over.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being….”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see,”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“Work helps prevent one from getting old. I, for one, cannot dream of retiring. Not now or ever. Retire? The word is alien and the idea inconceivable to me. I don’t believe in retirement for anyone in my type of work, not while the spirit remains. My work is my life. I cannot think of one without the other. To retire means to begin to die. The man who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest are the best remedy for age. Each day I am reborn. Each day I must begin again.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“the secret was to devote yourself entirely to one end, to one goal, and to work every day toward this goal, to put all your energy and imagination into the one endeavor. The only necessity was that this goal be unattainable.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
― Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age