For Jmore’s annual “Aging Gratefully” cover package, here are 18 (or chai) adages and insightful quotes from some famous folks and well-known sources about the process of growing older:
1.
“One who learns from elders is compared to what? To one who eats ripe grapes and drinks aged wine.”
—Pirkei Avot 4:20
2.
“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”
—George Burns
3.
“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.”
—Will Rogers
4.
“Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard, there is nothing you can do about it.”
—Golda Meir
5.
“The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
6.
“Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been.”
—Jimmy Buffet
7.
“Some guy said to me, ‘Don’t you think you’re too old to sing rock ‘n’ roll?’ I said, ‘You’d better check with Mick Jagger.’”
—Cher
8.
“Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional!”
—Walt Disney
9.
“We are always the same age inside.”
—Gertrude Stein
10.
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
—John Lennon
11.
“Aging means letting go, it means accepting, it means discovering that beauty was never in our skin … but in the story we carry inside us.”
—Meryl Streep
12.
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”
—Albert Einstein
13.
“The older you get, the older you want to get.”
—Keith Richards
14.
“Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young, but to live until I am seventy-five and yet not ever truly to have lived.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
15.
“The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.”
—Mark Twain
16.
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”
—Henry David Thoreau
17.
“I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have facelifts until my ears meet.”
—Rita Rudner
18.
“Every year should teach you something valuable; whether you get the lesson is up to you.”
—Oprah Winfrey
And one extra for good measure:
“Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.”
—Anonymous
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