Quotes
Quotes about Age
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams
Into a common light of common hours,
Until old age bring the red flare again.
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
The queen of the world and child of the skies!
Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.
Thou hast wounded the spirit that loved thee
And cherish'd thine image for years;
Thou hast taught me at last to forget thee,
In secret, in silence, and tears.
Epitaph on a child who died at the age of three weeks (Cheltenham Churchyard).
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
This is a wise maxim, "to take warning from others of what may be to your own advantage."
That saying which I hear commonly repeated,--that time assuages sorrow.
Really, you have seen the old age of an eagle, as the saying is.
It is the common vice of all, in old age, to be too intent upon our interests.
An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.
We may with advantage at times forget what we know.
He who has plenty of pepper will pepper his cabbage.
Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."
Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.
Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."
Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, "Sir," said he, "in war there is no room for a second miscarriage." Said one to Iphicrates, "What are ye afraid of?" "Of all speeches," said he, "none is so dishonourable for a general as ‘I should not have thought of it.'"
Cato instigated the magistrates to punish all offenders, saying that they that did not prevent crimes when they might, encouraged them. Of young men, he liked them that blushed better than those who looked pale.
Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.
There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.
To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said, "I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot."
"I will show," said Agesilaus, "that it is not the places that grace men, but men the places."
Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.
