The fust intimashun i had that i waz gitting old waz, i found myself telling to mi friends the same storys over again.
[The first intimation I had that I was getting old was, I found myself telling to my friends the same stories over again.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 155 “Affurisms: Ink Lings” (1874)
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Quotations about:
getting old
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
I’m growing fonder of my staff;
I’m growing dimmer in the eyes;
I’m growing fainter in my laugh;
I’m growing deeper in my sighs;
I’m growing careless of my dress;
I’m growing frugal of my gold;
I’m growing wise; I’m growing, — yes, —
I’m growing old!
Sum folks, az they gro older, gro wizer; but most folks simply gro stubbornner.
[Some folks, as they grow older, grow wiser; but most folks simply grow more stubborn.]Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 148 “Affurisms: Ink Brats” (1874)
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My days of love are over; me no more
The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before, —
In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o’er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.
What a wretched lot of old shriveled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind, — the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship, and now it is in a slight degree my experience.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Letter to Sara Hennell (1852-05-27)
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You know growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
PROFESSOR: What message do people generally send back when you first call on them?
OLD AGE: Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six, — sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don’t let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows.
Inside every older person there’s a younger person wondering what happened.
Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American epigramist, aphorist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #1390
I want to tell people approaching and perhaps fearing old age that it is a time of discovery. If they say, “Of what?” I can only answer, “We must find out for ourselves, otherwise it wouldn’t be discovery.”
Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author, psychologist
(Attributed)
She shrugged. “I don’t mind getting old.”
“I didn’t mind getting old when I was young, either,” I said. “It’s the being old now that’s getting to me.”
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
Our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-10-08), “The Area of Freedom,” University of Wisconsin, Madison
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I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old-age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
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