Older But Not Wiser Quotes & Sayings

The fifth-century Greek writer we know as Dionysius the Areopagite once said that as he grew older and wiser his books got shorter and shorter. — Anonymous

Look," said Whiskey Jack. "This is not a good country for gods. My people figured that out early on. There are creator spirits who found the earth or made it or shit it out, but you think about it: who's going to worship Coyote? He made love to Porcupine Woman and got his dick shot through with more needles than a pincushion. He'd argue with rocks and the rocks would win. "So, yeah, my people figured that maybe there's something at the back of it all, a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it, because it's always good to say thank you. But we never built churches. We didn't need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it. It gave us salmon and corn and buffalo and passenger pigeons. It gave us wild rice and walleye. It gave us melon and squash and turkey. And we were the children of the land, just like the porcupine and the skunk and the blue jay. — Neil Gaiman

Even the people I surround myself with ... are wiser, a little bit older than me, where before, all my boyfriends were younger. — Kim Kardashian

I'm older, and I'm better. I'm not old, but I'm older and wiser. — Torii Hunter

As you get older and wiser you realize that when people are given anything without having to earn it (unless they are physically or mentally utterly incapable of earning anything), they become ungrateful and lazy. They also become less happy. — Dennis Prager

I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes. — Joyce Carol Oates

At first I had not understood Mama. But as I grew older, maybe not wiser, certainly more realistic, I realized she did the best she could. She loved me, in her own way. Not everyone is born to be a mother. It does not come naturally to some women. — Christie Watson

I'm not desperate anymore or feeling weird about myself because I'm not working in this business. I'm older and wiser, and there's a lot more to life. — Melanie Griffith

Its the body grows older ...
The Mind grows wiser ... stronger ... — Michelle Geaney

Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometimes you will read it anyway, and you will take from it whatever you can. Then, perhaps, you will come back to it when you're older, and you will find the book has changed because you have changed as well, and the book is wiser, or more foolish, because you are wiser or more foolish than you were as a child. — Neil Gaiman

Vaughn's vision is older, wiser and harder than Ritchie's. — Will Self

Growing older is certain; growing wiser is harder and optional. — Debasish Mridha

The most significant thing about the Monkees as a pop phenomenon is that we were the only TV show about young adults that did not feature a wiser, older person. — Peter Tork

The great thing about acting is, because you're constantly playing other characters and exploring yourself because you have to find those other characters in yourself, you sort of broaden as a person over your life because you've been other people. So you can empathize with many different sorts of people. It's great in that way and I hope, therefore, as you get older as an actor, you not only get more interesting because you lived more, but you get a bit wiser as a person. — Jeremy Irons

In the preface to his great History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher wrote: "Men wiser than and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave ... " It seems to me that the same is true of the much older [geological stratigraphical] history of Europe. — D. V. Ager

The body, after all, older and wiser than soul, being first created, and, like a good horse, if given its way would go home by the best path and at the right pace. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

I am a little older and understand the nature of the business - the older you get the more your skills supposedly diminish, but I think I am getting wiser in how to use my physical skills. That's the frustrating part when you put so much heart and desire into things and feel like you are not wanted. — Randy Moss

Great spiritual teachings do not change, but we do. As we grow older and wiser, we can receive the teachings at deeper levels. — Marianne Williamson

That you are young," the cat said. "And less wise than one who is old. I am wiser than you, and I say you should go. It is obvious. You should trust a wiser head than your own." "You aren't any older than I am," she countered. "I am cat," Rowl said smugly, "which means I have made better use of my time." "Oh, you're impossible," Bridget said. "Yes. Cat." Rowl rose and flowed down onto the floor. He turned to face her, curling his tail around his paws. "Why do you wish to dishonor and humiliate Wordkeeper? Would you change his name?" "No, of course not," Bridget said. "But I'm just . . . I'm not like him." "No," Rowl said. "That is what growing up is for." "I am not a child," she said. The cat looked around speculatively and then turned back to her. "Rather than do your duty, you are hiding in the darkest corner of the darkest room in your home. This is very wise. Very mature. — Jim Butcher

As we grow older and wiser we understand more about how much there really is we can't know for sure. — Douglas Carl Fricke

As I grew older and when I became wiser, I realized that not only are we made of molecules, we are also governed and ruled by them. We are just molecular slaves in this vast limitless creation. — Biju Vasudevan

Getting older makes you no wiser,
but number of lessons that learned. — Toba Beta

I've spent a lot of time in the States, and the Big Country elates and irritates me simultaneously. It is a big boy child that frequently needs a hug: sometimes needing the prissiness of the world to remind it that its voice is not the only one. Africa is older and wiser, a poor grandmother, a pillaged woman, but still a strong woman. She knows she is a daughter of Earth. There are the sexy aunts of Asia and Europe, and of course, the fussy, once histrionic mother that is Britain. But it was Africa taught America the lesson of liberty. — Sean J Halford

Don't grow older - grow wiser. — Debasish Mridha

All I will say is we get wiser as we get older. And that what I am looking for in life is the same as I always have; happiness, peacefulness and joy. And that's all I'm going to say about that because otherwise I'd get into trouble — George Clooney

I wanted to deny him, but that's the terrible power of a diary: it not only calls forth the person you used to be but rubs your nose in him, reminding you that not all change is evolutionary. More often than not, you didn't learn from your mistakes. You didn't get wiser, but simply older, growing from the twenty-five-year-old who got stoned and accidentally peed on his friend Katherine's kitten to the thirty-five-year-old who got drunk and peed in the sandbox at his old elementary school. "The sandbox!" my sister Amy said at the time. "Don't you realize that children have to pee in there? — David Sedaris

He'd noticed that his grandson was working too hard, and he was the one who told him about the marbles. He told it this way. He said that the average life span for men was around seventy-five years. That meant thirty-nine hundred Saturdays - to play when you were a kid and to be with your family when you got older and wiser." "I see," I said. "Or to play once you got older. Or even to give lectures to anyone who'll listen." "Shush, Alex. Now, listen. So the grandfather figured out that his grandson, who was forty-three, had about sixteen hundred and sixty Saturdays left in his life. Statistically speaking. So what he did was he bought two large jars and filled them with beautiful cat's-eye marbles. He gave them to his grandson. And he told him that every Saturday, he should take one marble out of the jar. Just one, and just as a reminder that he had only so many Saturdays left, and that they were precious — James Patterson

Older men are wiser and that is much cooler to me. I've never been one for going out clubbing or getting off my head, so I always gravitated to men who were similar. They just tended to be older. I think you have more of an adventure with an older man. And a happier journey. — Emilia Fox

Margaux was older and wiser now and knew the waves couldn't fix what was wrong in her life, but at least they might give her some temporary respite. — Shelley Noble

You are not getting older; you are getting wiser. — Debasish Mridha

In future, you'll laugh at yourself on some things you do now. — Toba Beta

I dream the dreams of the young,' he said. 'And they are always dreams of being older, and richer, and wiser, and stronger, don't you think? — Anne Rice

And to Tiger Lily he suddenly, inexplicably, seemed older than her, and wiser, and the thought hit her hard that it wasn't fair, because she'd suffered, and there he was, looking like he knew so much more than she ever would. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

It's not like your soul gets older. It gets wiser. — Cindy Crawford

The pages continue to turn, and every day I'm a little older, hopefully a little wiser and a lot more grateful. Do I have regrets? I have a few - but not as many as you might think. If it hadn't been for the darkness, I never would have known the light. In life we all take different paths, some more difficult than others, but in the end, all that matters is whether or not they lead us home. — Richard Paul Evans

In time we grow older, we grow wiser, we grow smarter, and we're better. And I feel like I'm becoming more seasoned, although I don't have my salt-and-pepper hair. — Usher

Then I stood alone at the edge of the sea I had longed for so often; but though I was alone, I found it cheering, and breathed the air that is like no other, and smiled to hear the soft song of the little waves. Land - Nessus, the House Absolute, and all the rest - lay to the east; west lay the sea; I walked north because I was reluctant to leave it too soon, and because Triskele had run in that direction, along the margin of the sea. There great Abaia might wallow with his women, yet the sea was older far, and wiser than he; we human beings, like all the life of the land, had come from the sea; and because we could not conquer it, it was ours always. The old, red sun rose on my right and touched the waves with his fading beauty, and I heard the calling of the sea birds, the innumerable birds. — Gene Wolfe

One thing I can guarantee you. You may not be a great deal wiser from my talk today, but you will be a great deal older. — Melvin Helitzer

In the Christic tradition, this is the meaning of 'becoming as a little child.' Little children don't think they know what things mean, in fact, they know they don't know. They ask someone older and wiser to explain things to them. We're like children who don't know but think we do. We're meant to shine. Look at small children. They're all so unique before they start trying to be, because they demonstrate the power of genuine humility. This is also the explanation of 'beginner's luck.' When we go into a situation not knowing the rules, we don't pretend to know how to figure anything out, and we don't know yet what there is to be afraid of. This releases the mind to create from its own higher power. — Marianne Williamson

And sometimes, when the stars are kind, we read with an intake of breath, with a shudder, as if someone or something had 'walked over our grave,' as if a memory had suddenly been rescued from a place deep within us - the recognition of something we never knew was there, or of something we vaguely felt as a flicker or a shadow, whose ghostly form rises and passes back into us before we can see what it is, leaving us older and wiser. — Alberto Manguel

We live and learn, change and grow. Older, but not always wiser. Stronger but not necessarily smarter. Life is a dance of steps taken forward and backwards, time spent standing still, and twirling in circles as we follow our own shadows. — A.J. Compton

There's a lot of people that I disagree with that I think I could have interesting conversations with. What I don't want to get into is manufactured conflict. I would much rather talk to someone like Dr. Rhonda Patrick or Randall Carlson and be mesmerized by information. I guess in a way that's selfish, or maybe not objective of me. The older (and hopefully wiser) I get the less interested I am in conflict. I don't mind disagreeing with people in a civil way, but I definitely don't want to go out of my way to have an argument unless it's a really important subject. — Joe Rogan

I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes. — Neil Gaiman

I knew that before noon I would be told that my discovery was not special. An older and wiser scientist would tell me that, in fact, what I had seen was something that he himself might have assumed. While he explained that my observation wasn't a true revelation, only a confirmation of what should have been an obvious guess, I listened politely. It didn't matter what he said. Nothing could alter the overwhelming sweetness of briefly holding a small secret that the universe had earmarked just for me. I knew instinctively that if I was worthy of a small secret, I might someday be worthy of a big one. By — Hope Jahren

People change as they get older ... grow wiser, make better decisions ... i am very old,Laurel. Anyone who lives as long as I have can't help but collect regrets along the way ... things they did in the past ... things they wish they'd done differently. — Kate Morton

What is faith? It is a memory. Of a time when all was perfect in the world. When there was no fear and no judgment and no death. It is a memory of a time before we were born, a beacon to guide us back from the end to the beginning, to the memory of where we came from. It is a memory of a promise made before the earth was formed, before the stars glittered in the primordial sea. A promise that says that we will remember what we have learned on this journey so that we may return full circle, the same and yet different. Older. Wiser. Filled with compassion for others. And for ourselves. What is faith? It is the memory of love. — Kamran Pasha

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Two young salmon are swimming along one day. As they do, they are passed by a wiser, older fish coming the other way. The wiser fish greets the two as he passes, saying, "Morning boys, how's the water?" The other two continue to swim in silence for a little while, until the first one turns to the other and asks, "What the hell is water?" — David Foster Wallace

As we get older and wiser, that we all learn to trust each other enough so that we can truly be ourselves, and accept each other for who we really are. — R.J. Palacio

We are getting older, and we are getting wiser, and we are getting freer. And when you get the wisdom and the truth, then you get the freedom and you get power, and then look out. Look out. — Melissa Etheridge

Now it seemed like she could twist the lens on her life and see it from two entirely different perspectives. The perspective of her younger self. Her younger, sillier, innocent self. And her older, wiser, more cynical and sensible self. — Liane Moriarty

As you get older, you don't get wiser. You get irritable. — Doris Lessing

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we - Of many far wiser than we - And neither the angels in Heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. — Tonya Hurley

I'm not sure you get wiser as you get older, Starling, but you do learn to dodge a certain amount of hell. — Thomas Harris

You know how it is
you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4? — Kate Griffin

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I just think that things get easier as you get older and wiser and more experienced. You get more confident about who you are as you get older. I find that really comforting. — Rachel Weisz

Someday
When we are wiser
When the world's older
When we have learned
I pray
Someday we may yet
Live
To live and let live
Someday
Life will be fairer
Need will be rarer
Greed will not pay
Godspeed
This bright millennium
On its way
Let it come
Someday — Alan Menken

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

Maturity isn't a product of growing older. It's a product of growing wiser. — Ann Landers

You should keep dental floss on you at all times; when your eyesight goes, quit driving; don't keep too many secrets, eventually they'll eat away at you. But the most valuable lesson he taught me was this: Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution. We are all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us. And this is what I figured out on my own: Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you'd think. Nobody really grows up. — Lisa Lutz

As human beings we value the experience that comes with age. We are reminded over and over again with statements like 'older and wiser' and 'respect your elders,' promoting age as something to be cherished and respected. — Jenna Morasca

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. — Henry Beston

There were many reasons why I chose to stay silent about my past for so long, mostly fear and shame. Now im older and wiser.Now I understand that I should never have to live in fear of another human being, and if I do, that's their shame, not mine. — Gabriella Gillespie

[it] may have hastened his move to the private sector because there was such an outpouring of bitter criticism ... The result, if this is successful, will not be much different from what Sen. Lott and others were trying to enact back then ... It may be that we are all just older and wiser. — Roger Wicker