“Do not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy.”

Rejecting age and circumstance as excuses for abandoning hope · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Age
• Happiness
• Hope

“I believe that, if I live, I shall do my best literary work when I am a grandfather.”

An optimistic belief that age and family experience would deepen his literary powers. · Auto-Analysis

• Age
• Hope
• Writing

“On such occasions youth feigns an air of polite interest and reverence, while age tries to look virtuous.”

Gently mocking the mutual pretences of young and old. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Age
• Humour
• Youth

“The only penalty youth must pay for its enviable privilege is that of listening to people known, alas, to be older and alleged to be wiser.”

A playful observation about the uneasy relationship between youth and age. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Age
• Humour
• Youth

“So let me have my sweet do-nothing, as the Italians say; and let poor old Dobbin stand in the stall.”

A charming defence of rest after years of literary and professional work · Letter to M. A. De Wolfe Howe Jr, September 22, 1887

• Age
• Rest
• Solitude

“I am not cross — only more set in my ways, as I have a right to be.”

A cheerful defence of the privileges of age and established habits · Letter, The Victim of Correspondents

• Age
• Humour
• Independence

“Remember that I am an old man, and therefore liable to be dull, if not tedious.”

A self-deprecating joke about age and the expectations placed upon a celebrated writer · Late correspondence

• Age
• Humility
• Humour

“The young man knows the rules of life; the old man knows the exceptions.”

Contrasting youthful certainty with the complexity revealed by experience · Remark on age and experience

• Age
• Experience
• Wisdom

“Hardly a year passes over my head in which some point or angle, some plane, does not start out and reveal itself as a new truth in the lesson of my life.”

Reflecting on the continuing discovery of new truths throughout life · Autobiographical Notes

• Age
• Discovery
• Experience

“Old Age carries one of them in his pocket. It is some kind of narcotic, — it dulls our sensibility; it tends to make us sleepy and indifferent.”

Describing the gradual emotional softening that can accompany advancing age · Letter to John O. Sargent, February 10, 1889

• Acceptance
• Age
• Emotion

“The truth is, Nature has her anodynes, and Old Age carries one of them in his pocket. It is some kind of narcotic, — it dulls our sensibility.”

A wry and surprisingly tender reflection on the consolations that accompany ageing · Letter to John O. Sargent, February 10, 1889

• Acceptance
• Age
• Nature

“With the years, the trials increase.”

Original: Mit den Jahren steigern sich die Prüfungen. — Life is portrayed as an accumulation of challenges rather than a gradual retreat from difficulty. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, Makaria’s Archive (German)

• Age
• Difficulty
• Endurance

“When one is old, one must do more than when one was young.”

Original: Wenn man alt ist, muß man mehr tun, als da man jung war. — Age is presented not as a reason for withdrawal but as a reason for greater purposeful effort. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (German)

• Action
• Age
• Work

“Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination.”

Framing vitality as an enduring attitude rather than a count of years · Commentary on art and age (essay)

• Age
• Imagination
• Youth

“Can one ever grow too old to speak of love?”

Original: Kan en bli for gammel til å tale om kjærlighet? — Reflects a timeless devotion to love regardless of advancing years · Letter (Norwegian)

• Age
• Love

“O what a thing is age! Death without death's quiet.”

Age as restless death · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Age
• Death
• Rest

“The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow.”

Aging as a gradual, gentle release · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Age
• Sorrow
• Time

“When anyone, as I am now doing, approaches the age of seventy-four, he ought to be able to tell his juniors something worth listening to.”

A wry reflection on age, experience, and the obligation to pass something worthwhile to younger generations · Reminiscences and Opinions, Chapter I

• Age
• Experience
• Wisdom

“There is really nothing more to tell of my life, which at present appears to have settled into a placid groove.”

A quiet late-life reflection after years of controversy and upheaval · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Age
• Life
• Peace

“At my age, and believing as I do that the battle of my life is over, I decline to put on any of the convenient cloaks and masks which convention has at our disposal whenever we need them.”

Rejecting socially convenient disguises in favour of candour late in life · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Age
• Convention
• Sincerity

“As the years go by, comparative values are found to alter.”

Observing how age changes the relative importance of life's pleasures · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Age
• Change
• Time

“As a prudent man puts money by to serve as a provision for the material wants of his old age, so too he needs to lay up against the end of his days provision for the intellect.”

Presenting lifelong learning as preparation for the intellectual needs of old age · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Age
• Learning
• Mind

“The pleasure of learning and knowing, though not the keenest, is yet the least perishable of pleasures.”

Celebrating learning as a pleasure unusually resistant to age and circumstance · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Age
• Happiness
• Learning

“Have I not grown old-fashioned by now, have I not lost my strength?”

Original: Да не устарел ли, не ослабел ли уж я? — Even an established master could wonder whether age had diminished his powers. · Question to Sergey Glinka, recalled in contemporaries’ memoirs (Russian)

• Age
• Humility
• Writing