Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
- Edmund Waller
Lhasa, Tibet
Every wrinkle is but a notch in the
quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
- Charles Dickens
Croatia
France
The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Tibet
It takes a long time to become young.
- Pablo Picasso
Myanmar/Burma
Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.
- Garson Kanin
Afghanistan
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different,
are not less than the pleasures of youth.
- W. Somerset Maugham
Paraguay
Preah Khan, Cambodia
Warning
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth…
- Jenny Joseph
Cuba
Those who love deeply never grow old;
they may die of old age, but they die young.
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Tibet
The answer to old age is to keep one’s mind busy
and to go on with one’s life as if it were interminable.
I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was
dying of tuberculosis.
- Leon Edel
Shanghai, China
When we’re young we have faith in what is seen,
but when we’re old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.
– Maxwell Anderson
Brazil
Vrindivan, India
The great secret that all old people share is that you really
haven’t changed in 70 or 80 years.
Your body changes, but you don’t change at all.
- Doris Lessing
Afghan refugee, Pakistan
Porbandar, Gujarat, India
Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom.
-Plato
Macedonia
Yemen
A man’s age is something impressive, it sums up his life:
maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and
despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed
through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves.
A man’s age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-1944, translated from French by Norah Purcell
Rajasthan, India
Pakistan
Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries
for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who
have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably
enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour.
With such people the grey head is but the impression of the
old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but
a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
- Charles Dickens
Shanghai, China
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