The first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary.[Die ersten vierzig Jahre unsers Lebens liefern den Text, die folgenden dreißig den Kommentar dazu.]
The afternoon came down as imperceptibly as age comes to a happy man.
That’s what happens when people reach old age. Nobody remembers they’ve been bastards too.
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.[Alderdommen realiserer Ungdommens Drømme: det seer man paa Swift, han byggede i sin Ungdom en Daarekiste, i sin Alderdom gik han selv i den.]
Nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old.
No one should be alone in their old age.
Most fatal diseases had their own specific odor, but that none was as specific as old age.[La mayoría de las enfermedades mortales tenían un olor propio, pero ninguno era tan específico como el de la vejez.]
It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life’s parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.
It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him neither joy nor credit.
I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.
