O how blessed it would be never to marry, or grow old; but to spend one’s life innocently and indifferently among the trees and rivers which alone can keep one cool and childlike in the midst of the troubles of the world!
Youth is happy, because it has the ability to see beauty. When this ability is lost, wretched old age begins, decay, unhappiness.
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.
The strange thing about growing old is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost; one feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone, no longer in hope or fear, only observing.
The older one grows the more one likes indecency.
The older one gets the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed: it is a precious gift, comparable to a state of grace.
The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.
The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them.
The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.
Of course one worries about getting older – we’re all fearful of death, let’s not kid ourselves. I’m simply not panicking as my laugh lines grow deeper. Who wants a face with no history, no sense of humor?
Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age.