30 of the best quotes about aging

By Lynette Gil

August 07, 2015 at 04:40 AM

Share & Print

With an estimated 10,000 baby boomers retiring daily in the next decade, the topic of aging is bound to come up often with clients. Instead of shying away from the topic or using euphemisms, face it head on with wit, humor and wisdom.

Here, we have lassoed a roundup of funny quotes from celebrities, authors, politicians, philosophers — just about anyone who has spoken about aging, really — along with some inspirational words that distill years of experience into concise kernels of truth. Read, enjoy, share with your clients — and if you have others that top your list, let us know in the comments section below.

The recipe for immortality

"The boomers will eventually have to accept that it is not possible to stay forever young or to stop aging. But it is possible, by committing to show up for others in community after community, to earn a measure of immortality."

– Eric Liu

(From BrainyQuote)

What is aging, really?

"Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging."

– Maya Angelou

(From Goodreads.com)

I can sleep when I am dead … but I'm not that sleepy …

"You spend 90 percent of your adult life hoping for a long rest and the last 10 percent trying to convince the Lord that you're actually not that tired."

– Robert Brault

(From CarltonsQuoteCorner)

Waiting a lifetime…

"I had to wait 110 years to become famous. I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible."

– Jeanne Louise Calment (1875-1997)

(From Psychology Today)

Why are snowballs so heavy?

"The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball."

– Doug Larso

(From BabytoBoomer)

A chocolate a day keeps the wrinkles away?

"I'm pretty sure that eating chocolate keeps wrinkles away because I have never seen a 10 year old with a Hershey bar and crow's feet."

– Amy Neftzger

(From Goodreads.com)

No one likes socks

"I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don't have to."

– Albert Einstein

(From Psychology Today)

You've made it …

"We've put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it."

– Frank Howard Clark

(From Hubpages.com)

What about MSG?

"Old people shouldn't eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get."

– Robert Orben

(From CarltonsQuoteCorner)

Calling a plastic surgeon …

"Maybe it's true that life begins at 50. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out."

– Phyllis Diller

(From Goodreads.com)

Out of sight, out of mind

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

– Henry Ford

(From BrainyQuote)

Never give up, never surrender …

"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

(From BabytoBoomer)

Well-aged wine

"I'm like old wine. They don't bring me out very often, but I'm well preserved."

– Rose Kennedy

(From CarltonsQuoteCorner)

A poet's perspective …

"The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected."

– Robert Frost

(From Goodreads.com)

Death … not today, not today

"From my perspective, there's no reason to be afraid of aging, because if you age, you're lucky! The alternative is death."

– Drew Barrymore

(From BrainyQuote)

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

"Old people love to give good advice to console themselves for no longer being able to set a bad example."

– François de La Rochefoucauld

(From en.proverbia.net)

Is there an app for that?

"By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it."

– George Burns

(From Psychology Today)

Adding insult to injury

"There are three periods in life: youth, middle age and 'how well you look.'"

– Nelson Rockefeller

(From CarltonsQuoteCorner)

Like a prayer …

Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:

"Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.

Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.

Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains — they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.

I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint — it is so hard to live with some of them — but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.

Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.

Amen"

– Margot Benary-Isbert

(From Goodreads.com)

Nurse!

"There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward."

– John Mortimer

(From Hubpages.com)

Here, have some coffee

"What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy."

– Voltaire

(From CarltonsQuoteCorner)

Investing in old age

"A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, 'At my age, I don't even buy green bananas.'"

– Claude Pepper

(From Buzzle.com)

A message from Classical Athens

"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."

– Plato

(From Psychology Today)

The fountain of youth for you and your clients

"If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young."

– Jeff Bezos

(From BrainyQuote)

I had the best time of my life

"The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. 'Why,' I answered without a thought, 'now.'

– David Grayson

(From BabytoBoomer)

Getting a haircut

"Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair."

– Sam Ewing

(From QuoteGarden)

How many candles are on your cake?

"Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest."

–Larry Lorenzoni

(From Hubpages.com)

You reap what you sow

"We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage."

– Winston Churchill

(From en.proverbia.net)

Is noon the best time of day?

"Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday."

– Eleanor Roosevelt

(From BrainyQuote)