Happy Retirement Quotes & Sayings

There ought to be a word for the Winter form of a tree. — Vivian Swift

She stepped inside, into warmth and white marble veined with gray, into the strangely spicy scent of whatever the masses of bold flowers cast off from their silver urn on the central table. — J.D. Robb

I have to not harden my heart, because I want to stay open to feel things. — Dolly Parton

Well, I think some people are very happy in retirement. And in a year and a half I'm going to see how happy I feel in retirement. I'm just going to not work quite so hard, but I'll continue to write as long as God gives me breath. — Jan Karon

Why just work and live for a happy retirement? Why not work and live for a happy life? — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

Your best retirement plan for retiring happy and prosperous - don't be a burden on others. — Ernie J Zelinski

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

A man approaching retirement called the retirement office to inquire about his pension. Afterward, he was asked if his wife worked. "She's worked all her life making me happy", he replied. "Yes sir, but has she earned money to receive her pension?" "When we got married we agreed on an arrangement", he said. "I would earn the living, and she would make the living worthwhile".
"Make the living worthwhile" ... have we forgotten the very essence of that? Have we forgotten to live for someone else, that doing so IS what makes a living worthwhile? — Kelly Crawford

Feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my brothers. I was like growing up. — Anthony Burgess

I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. — George Washington

Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics. — Robert A. Heinlein

At all events we are not likely in this day to err on the side of praying too much. Might it not rather be feared that many believers in this generation pray too little? Is not the actual amount of time that many Christians give to prayer in the aggregate very small? I am afraid these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily. I am afraid the private devotions of many are most painfully scanty and limited, - just enough to prove they are alive, and no more. — J.C. Ryle

I often think about dogs when I think about work and retirement. There are many breeds of dog that just need to be working, and useful, or have a job of some kind, in order to be happy. Otherwise they are neurotically barking, scratching, or tearing up the sofa. A working dog needs to work. And I am a working dog. — Martha Sherrill

I'm happy in retirement. — Greg Rusedski

If you want to retire happy, great health is important. The foundation for all happiness lies in health. Physical, mental, or spiritual health - you must use it or lose it! — Ernie J Zelinski

While I am flattered about the speculation of being enticed out of retirement, I'm happy with life as a bad golfer! — Chipper Jones

Most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload. — Russell L. Ackoff

Retirement is a very subjective thing. There are guys I know who retire and they're very happy and they never miss work at all. I can't see myself retiring and fondling a dog every day. I like to get up and work and go out. I have too much energy or too much nervous anxiety or something. So I don't see myself retiring. Maybe I will suddenly get a stroke or a heart attack and I will be forced to retire, but if my health holds out I don't expect to retire. — Woody Allen

Sex is Number 1 of my Top-10 joys in retirement. Number 2 is reading How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. I forgot the other eight. — Ernie J Zelinski

Meanness demeans the demeaner far more than the demeaned. — Malcolm Forbes

At my age, and in my circumstances, what sinister object, or personal emolument had I to seek after, in this life? The growing infirmities of age and the increasing love of retirement, daily confirm my decided predilection for domestic life: and the great Searcher of human hearts is my witness, that I have no wish, which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm. — George Washington

Though I've never met a teacher who was not happy in retirement, I rarely meet one who thinks that their teaching life was not a grand way to spend a human life. The unhappy ones are the young ones, those who must teach in public schools when the whole nation seems at war with the very essence of teaching. — Pat Conroy

Confronted by something she couldn't explain, she pretended it wasn't there. Dude, ostrich much? — Karen Marie Moning

What's the difference between this school and a happy retirement community?" The room was silent again. "The difference is 'rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days - that's the dream, right? 'What do you do all day?' 'Some reading, a little writing.' Sounds idyllic, right? And yet school sucks. Everybody hates it. What's the difference? 'Rithmetic! It's time somebody put their finger on this fucking obvious thing. — B.J. Novak