Life goes on, having nowhere else to go.             ––Diane Ackerman_

Old people are fond of giving good advice; it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example.            ––La Rochefoucauld

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.        ––Richard Bach

Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age.                                                  ––Florida Scott-Maxwell

I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point.         ––Susan Sarandon

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.                               ––Douglas MacArthur

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.    ––Abraham Heschel

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.           ––Tom Wilson

It takes a long time to become young.                   ––Pablo Picasso _

At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At 40, we don’t care what they think of us. At 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.                                                             ––Ann Landers

How confusing the beams form memory’s lamp are; / One day a bachelor, the next a grampa. / What is the secret of the trick? / How did I get so old so quick?                                                        ––Ogden Nash

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.  ––Willa Cather

 

(Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)