A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors; he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894) American poet, essayist, scholar

Article (1867-01), “The Guardian Angel,” ch. 2 “Great Excitement”, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 19, No. 91
    (Source)

Collected in The Guardian Angel, ch. 2 (1867).