His many years had reduced and polished him the way water smooths and polishes a stone or generations of men polish a proverb.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer

“The Man on the Threshold”, The Aleph (1949) [tr. Hurley (1998)]

See also Borges "The South [El Sur]," La Nación (1953): "On the floor, and hanging on to the bar, squatted an old man, immobile as an object. His years had reduced and polished him as water does a stone or the generations of men do a sentence." (Alt. trans. [Hurley (1998)]: "On the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polished by generations of mankind.")