Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Post #3139

May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,
And grow wiser and better, as my strength wears away,
Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.
—Walter Pope, M.D. (from The Old Man's Wish)

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Post #3111

Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.
—Mark Twain

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Post #3103

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
—Henri Frédéric Amiel

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Post #3082

I am very thankful to old age, which has increased my eager desire for conversation.
—Cicero

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Post #1942

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
—Mark Twain

Monday, February 02, 2015

Post #1741

It is a characteristic of old age to find the progress of time accelerated. The less one accomplishes in a given time, the shorter does the retrospect appear.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt

Friday, January 11, 2013

Post #1161

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?
—Satchel Paige

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Post #1118

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul.
Douglas MacArthur

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Post #1064

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea - "cruising," it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

"I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
—from "Wanderer" by Sterling Hayden, Sailor extraordinaire

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Post #1051

Life is what happens to us while we make other plans.
—Allen Saunders

Friday, April 06, 2012

Post #913

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.
—Jane Burchill

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Post #721

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Post #720

It is better to wear out than to rust out.
—Richard Cumberland

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Post #317

People ought to be one of two things, young or old. No; what's the use of fooling? People ought to be one of two things, young or dead.
—Dorothy Parker

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Post #184

Growing old is no more than a bad habit that a busy person has no time to form.
—André Maurois

Monday, January 11, 2010

Post #102

Happy the man who gains sagacity in youth, but thrice happy he who retains the fervour of youth in age.
—Dagobert Runes

Monday, November 23, 2009

Post #54

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.
—Victor Hugo

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Post #46

A person is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
—John Barrymore

Monday, March 17, 2008

Post #29

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
—Henry Ford

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.

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El Paso, Texas, United States
Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character

One From the Archives

Post #1234

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied...

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