There is plenty to lament about getting old. Our bodies are not what they used to be. Our health may have failed, we have regrets, the time ahead is short. That’s one way of thinking about it.
But what if we opened our hearts to a different way of thinking, even for the space of a moment? What if we turned the coin over to examine the other side, the one where our mind, our mature and wonderful mind, triumphs? The following quotations come from a wide variety of people, but they all contain a joie de vivre; they all embrace and celebrate our old selves. Read one every day and take it to heart, live it, embrace it, think of how it applies to you. Tell someone you love them, and love yourself.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” –Henry Ford
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” –C.S. Lewis
“Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.” –Carroll Bryant
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” - George Bernard Shaw
“I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.” - Albert Einstein
“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” - Frank Lloyd Wright
"Ageing is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength." - Betty Friedan
“Don’t waste so much time worrying about your skin or your weight. Develop what you do, what you put your hands on in the world.” - Meryl Streep
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” - Sophia Loren
“To keep the heart unwrinkled — to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent — that is to triumph over old age.” – Thomas Bailey Aldrich
“Almost all my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me, feel about 25 — unless we haven’t had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.” – Martha Beck
“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” – David Bowie
“ … (S)he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.” – Cephalus
“Old age … is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.” – Confucius
“You don’t have a future when you refuse to accept the former generation. Simple.” – Petra Hermans
“Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
“It’s not the specter of aging that haunts me. Rather, it’s the far greater fear of having aged and having nothing to show for the aging.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
“The great thing about getting older is that you get a chance to tell the people in your life who matter what they mean to you.” – Mike Love
“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain
“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” – Samuel Ullman
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