Retirement Living Quotes & Sayings

There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it. — Henry Moore

It's like living in a retirement home! Clarence is taking a nap right now, and he eats at five. It's so boring."
"You've only been here for two days."
"And that's been more than enough. The only thing keeping me alive is that he keeps a hefty supply of liquor on hand. But at the rate I'm going, that'll be gone by the weekend. Jesus Christ, I'm climbing the walls." His eyes fell on the cross at my neck. "Oh. Sorry. No offense to Jesus. — Richelle Mead

A few generations ago, men went to work or war and rarely got to see life beyond their careers. A generation ago, our parents had to answer the question of what they would do with the last third of their lives. How would they spend their retirement? Would it be squandered on silly things or invested in significance? But now, the question of legacy isn't a matter of if you live long enough or when you retire; it's a matter of what you will do with what you have right now. You don't have to earn a living for thirty years to turn around and spend the next thirty giving it away. If significance is what matters to you, you can structure your life and work in a way that allows you to live your legacy now. In fact, your giving doesn't have to be a by-product of your success; it can be the very thing that drives it in the first place. — Jeff Goins

Almost all those who have written concerning the devout life have had chiefly in view persons who have altogether quitted the world; or at any rate they have taught a manner of devotion which would lead to such total retirement. But my object is to teach those who are living in towns, at court, in their own households, and whose calling obliges them to a social life, so far as externals are concerned. — Francis De Sales

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

What will I do with myself when I retire? When I quit my job, I do not want to quit living. Can I possibly be of use when retirement day comes, or will I just be taking up space? — John Anthony West

It was the economic benefit,You make a comfortable living in public service and you get a fairly comfortable retirement, if you watch your pennies and you're not extravagant. But in television, if a show goes, you make a substantial amount of money. So, economically it just didn't make sense for me not to. — Mills Lane

By 2014, Reed had calculated, a city of a million people, the tenth largest city in the United States, would be serviced by 1,600 public workers. "There is no way to run a city with that level of staffing," he said. "You start to ask: What is a city? Why do we bother to live together? But that's just the start." The problem was going to grow worse until, as he put it, "you get to one." A single employee to service the entire city, presumably with a focus on paying pensions. "I don't know how far out you have to go until you get to one," said Reed, "but it isn't all that far." At that point, if not before, the city would be nothing more than a vehicle to pay the retirement costs of its former workers. The only clear solution was if former city workers up and died, soon. But former city workers were, blessedly, living longer than ever. This — Michael Lewis

Your purpose in life isn't to make money. It isn't to live a comfortable lifestyle, to prepare for your retirement, or even to provide well for your family. Believe it or not, you're designed for something far better and much more exhilarating. If you limit your life's purpose to acquiring wealth or living comfortably, then you'll never have enough and you'll never be satisfied. — Will Davis Jr.

Real luxury is not working like a maniac to take an expensive vacation--it is living a life you enjoy every day. — Kathy Gottberg

I think 'retirement' goes hand in hand with people who make a living by having a 'job.' I don't think we-the .00001 percent of the population who are so fortunate to love passionately what we do-consider it a 'job. — Dustin Hoffman

While the changes that are necessary are actually simple, they're painful, and require courage and sacrifice. Living standards will decline in real terms. Citizens will have to save more and consume less. Working lives with lengthen. For many, retirement will be revert to being a luxury. Taxes and charges for government services will rise to match the cost of providing them. There has to be greater emphasis on the real economy - the creation and sale of goods and services. Financial institutions need to return to their actual role of supporting economic activity. — Satyajit Das

Retirement without literary amusements is death itself, and a living tomb. — Seneca The Younger

If we aren't profitable by December 20, I will close the business. That would leave him about $800,000, plus his retirement money and home, and he would do something else to earn a living. — Dave Ramsey

A: 10% savings 10% donation 35% housing and living expenses 25% food 5% entertainment 6-10% retirement (more if you're older) 3-5% college fund for children — Celso Cukierkorn

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

The car provided Americans with an enviable standard of living. You could not get a steady job with high wages and health and retirement benefits working on the General Livestock Corporation assembly line putting udders on cows. — P. J. O'Rourke

What if you save for 40 years, putting off all kinds of opportunities, then get hit by a bus the day before retirement? Better to plan for the future while also living in the present. — Chris Guillebeau

There are two things that you need to save for. First, you need an emergency cushion of no fewer than six months of living expenses. This needs to be cash in a liquid account where you can get at it in - yes - an emergency if you need it. In other words, money markets, not CDs. You also need to save for your future: that means retirement. — Jean Chatzky

Our society has changed in unforeseeable ways since Social Security was created. For example, we are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives and while this is all great news, this has also placed added pressure on America's retirement system. — Norm Coleman

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. — Voltaire

Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. — Anthony Burgess

In a sense, New World conquest was about men seeking a way around one of life's basic rules - that human beings have to work for a living, just like the rest of the animal world. In Peru, as elsewhere in the Americas, Spaniards were not looking for fertile land that they could farm, they were looking for the cessation of their own need to perform manual labor. To do so, they needed to find large enough groups of people they could force to carry out all the laborious tasks necessary to provide them with the essentials of life: food, shelter, clothing, and, ideally, liquid wealth. Conquest, then, had little to do with adventure, but rather had everything to do with groups of men willing to do just about anything in order to avoid working for a living. Stripped down to its barest bones, the conquest of Peru was all about finding a comfortable retirement. — Kim MacQuarrie

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

The concept of retirement is still so new to our society, because, for the most part, we are stepping away from our careers earlier and living longer. For example, in 1940 the average age of retirement was seventy, but the average life expectancy was only sixty-two. Today the average age for retirement is sixty-two, and the average life expectancy is seventy-seven!2 — Bill Schultheis

A woman who can eat a real bruschetta is a woman you can love and who can love you. Someone who pushes the thing away because it's messy is never going to cackle at you toothlessly across the living room of your retirement cottage or drag you back from your sixth heart attack by sheer furious affection. Never happen. You need a woman who isn't afraid of a faceful of olive oil for that. — Nick Harkaway

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

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only be deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. — Douglas MacArthur

Let me tell you exactly what we would do on Social Security. Yes, we'd raise the retirement age two years and phase it in over 25 years; that means we'd raise it one month a year for 25 years when we're all living longer, and living better lives. — Chris Christie

I gotta make a living somehow, and make ends meet. I accept the idea of having a retirement. — Ted Leo

Social Security is a solemn promise to kupuna like my 88-year-old mother that they can rely on the retirement they've earned. While I'm glad to see our seniors receive an increase for the second year in a row, I wish the cost-of-living adjustment could be larger. However, every little bit helps make a difference in these tough economic times. — Mazie Hirono

Living each day as if it were your last doesn't mean your last day of retirement on a remote island. It means to live fully, authentically and spontaneously with nothing being held back. — Jack Canfield

Among the numerous requisites that must concur to complete an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The seed of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment and the powers of attraction can be gained only by a general converse. — Samuel Johnson

For millions, the retirement dream is in reality an economic nightmare. For millions, growing old today means growing poor, being sick, living in substandard housing, and having to scrimp merely to subsist. — Sylvia Porter

Baby Step Four: Invest 15 Percent of Your Income in Retirement Those of you concerned about retirement are relieved we have finally gotten to this step. Those who have been living in denial are wondering what all the fuss is about. Baby Step Four is time to get really serious about your wealth building. — Dave Ramsey

I'm well aware that it's life I need, and it's life I'm looking for. But the offer has gotten "interpreted" by well-meaning people to say, "Oh, well. Yes, of course ... God intends life for you. But that is eternal life, meaning, because of the death of Jesus Christ you can go to heaven when you die." And that's true ... in a way. But it's like saying getting married means, "Because I've given you this ring, you will be taken care of in your retirement." And in the meantime? Isn't there a whole lot more to the relationship in the meantime? (It's in the meantime that we're living out our days, by the way.) Are we just lost at sea? What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source, and what I find is just astounding. — John Eldredge

The system is not intended as a substitute for private savings, pension plans, and insurance protection. It is, rather, intended as the foundation upon which these other forms of protection can be soundly built. Thus, the individual's own work, his planning and his thrift will bring him a higher standard of living upon his retirement, or his family a higher standard of living in the event of his death, than would otherwise be the case. Hence the system both encourages thrift and self-reliance, and helps to prevent destitution in our national life. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Retirement without the love of letters is a living burial. — Seneca The Younger

We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead, we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship. — David Platt

We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country, wish time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hairstyle, criticize anyone who's different, go to a religious service and beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despise the other tribe who worships a false god. — Paulo Coelho

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