
People tend to act like getting older is the worst thing in the world, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of reasons to be positive about old age and there’s no reason you can’t still live life to the full and have a whale of a time.
So whether you’re planning on growing old disgracefully or gracefully, we’ve collected an amazing selection of empowering quotes from a variety of inspirational figures and compiled them into an infographic. We’ve chosen a varied group of voices that includes writers, actors, activists, astronauts, designers and comedians amongst others. There’s even a quote from the oldest woman who ever lived and she certainly wasn’t complaining!
Each quote brings a fresh perspective on old age and the new opportunities it brings, with a great mix of wisdom and humour included. Take a look below – we hope you enjoy these quotes and you leave feeling positive and inspired. Feel free to share the infographic with your friends or on your own site, simply making sure you refer back to UKS Mobility.
If you’d like to read the quotes in text form, click here.
1. “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”. ― C.S Lewis
2. “I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.” ― Joan Didion
3. “We are always the same age inside.” ― Gertrude Stein
4. “I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.” ― Maya Angelou
5. “There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” ― Milan Kundera
6. “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.” ― Robert Frost
7. “Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom.” ― Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. “She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!” ― Mary Ann Shaffer
9. “Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.” ― Robert Browning
10. “I wear my wrinkles like battle scars, having earned every last one slaying life’s dragons. They boast of my victories and some defeats while their beauty is a wealth of wisdom gained.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich
11. “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.” ― Frank Lloyd Wright
12. “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” ― George Bernard Shaw
13. “Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” ― Maggie Kuhn
14. “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!” ― Ingrid Bergman
15. “I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.” ― Albert Einstein
16. “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” ― Sophia Loren
17. “Ageing is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” -― Betty Friedan
18. “Don’t waste so much time worrying about your skin or your weight. Develop what you do, what you put your hands on in the world.” ― Meryl Streep
19. “…inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” ― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
20. “I think people would live a bit longer if they didn’t know how old they were. Age puts restrictions on things.”
― Karl Pilkington
21. “One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one’s dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.” ― W.B. Yeats,
22. “If I could get back my youth, I’d do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.” ― Oscar Wilde
23. “… forty’s nothing, at fifty you’re in your prime, sixty’s the new forty, and so on.” ― Julian Barne
24. “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” ― Aldous Huxley
25. “When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.” ― Victor Hugo
26. “Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kind, sunshiny old age.” ― Lydia Maria Child
27. “I had to wait 110 years to become famous. I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible.” ― Jeanne Louise Calment
28. “Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar.” ― John Glenn
29. “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” ― Satchel Paige
30. “Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.” ― Coco Chanel
31. “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
32. When you’re 16, you think 28 is so old! And when you get to 28 and it’s fabulous you think what about 42? Ugh! And then 42 is great. As you reach each age, you gain the understanding you need to deal with it and enjoy it.” — Helen Mirren
33. “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been” ― Mark Twain
34. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ― Les Brown
35. A man ninety years old was asked to what he attributed his longevity. I reckon, he said, with a twinkle in his eye, it because most nights I went to bed and slept when I should have sat up and worried. ― Dorothea Kent
36. “Old age is not a disease – it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses. ― Maggie Kuhn
37. “He who is of 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
38. “It’s true about the eyes being the window to the soul. Your face can be etched with worry, and twisted by ageing, but the eyes tell the true story of who you are.” ― Naomie Harris
39. “Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.” ― Ausonius
40. “Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” ― Luis Bunuel
41. “Cherish all your happy moments, they make a fine cushion for old age.” ― Booth Tarkington
42. “I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.” ― Francis Bacon
43. “The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all.” ― Doris Lessing
44. “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” ― Madeleine Engle
45. “That’s another great thing about getting older. Your life is written on your face.” ― Frances McDormand
46. “Ageing is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” ― David Bowie
47. “Why are people afraid of getting older? You feel wiser. You feel more mature. You feel like you know yourself better. You would trade that for softer skin? Not me!” ― Anna Kournikova
48. “Sometimes people describe my hair as grey, but I prefer the term silver, for I will never grow grey. Grey is a mind-set, a metaphor for growing old, but silver is vibrant and alive, a celebration of life.” ― Marty Norman
49. “Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” ― Samuel Ullman
50. “Growing old is a journey best undertaken with a sense of humour and curiosity.” ― Irma Kurtz
51.”You know people who are already saying “I’m going to be 30, oh what am I going to do? Well use that decade! Use them all!” ― Betty White
** This post was originally published on https://www.uksmobility.co.uk/blog/2018/06/old-age-quotes/