Quotes & Sayings About Wisdom With Age

The glory of the elderly is long life with grey hair. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Old age is an ordeal, of flesh and mind. Of winding down, of slowing down, of dying cells. It's accepting the loss of physical attractiveness and replacing it with the power and wisdom that can only come with old age. — Colleen McCullough

You can't imagine fame. You can only ever see it from an outsider and comment on it with the rueful wisdom of a non participant. When it happens to you, it doesn't matter what age or how, it is a very steep learning curve. The imprtanot thing to realize in all of it is that life is short, to protect the ones you love, and not expose yourself to too much abuse or narcissistic reflection gazing and move on. If fame affords me the type of ability to do the kind of work I'm being offered, who am I to complain about the downsides. It's all relative. And this are obviously very high class problems. The way privacy becomes an every shrinking island is inevitable but also manageable and it doesn't necessary have to get that way ... — Benedict Cumberbatch

You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty. — Lord Chesterfield

I have never met anyone who built a bomb shelter and felt protected by it. I have never met a modern military man who did not realize that military victory is a concept which became obsolete with the coming of the nuclear age, and most civilians realize this also. Wisdom demands that we stop preparing to wage a war which would eliminate mankind - and start preparing to eliminate the seeds of war. — Peace Pilgrim

That is the problem with age and wisdom - it merely shows you how helpless you are. The wiser you become, the more you learn to keep your mouth shut, until eventually the grave silences you forever. — Bill Bonner

Understanding and love require a wisdom that comes only with age. — Rollo May

The answer, usually, is no. Wisdom is a quality that defies easy definition but psychologists who study aging have found that some of its components - judgment, emotional regulation - do improve with age in most people, consciously or not. Of course there is a subset of people out there who are sitting in their rocking chairs, spewing hate, but my guess is that these people weren't very pleasant to begin with, ... The reality is that the data are fairly convincing that people as they get older become more positive and less self-absorbed. — James W. Pennebaker

What we call the wisdom that comes with age is usually simple caution. — Jessica Zafra

But there were also times when she cried out in the darkness biting her lips - cried out against the substance of her age: for it was now that she should be young; now above all other times, with the wisdom in her, the wisdom that was frittered away in her 'teens', set aside in her twenties, now, lying there, palpable and with forty summers gone. She clenched her hands together. What good was wisdom; what good was anything when the fawn is fled from the grove? — Mervyn Peake

With age comes common sense and wisdom. — Nas

I am hoping that, with the added wisdom of old age, I can still look ahead for an improvement in tone, line, colour and composition. — E. J. Hughes

With tremendous clarity and wisdom, Daniel Tomasulo has crafted a memoir at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Layers of time and memory - childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age - are so beautifully revealed here, a trenchant reminder that our pasts are alive inside of us. There are psychologists who can write, and writers who can psychologize, but rarely have the two met on the page with such moving, profound results. — Dani Shapiro

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered. — Ambrose Bierce

Those who, animal-like, live solely according to the senses ... misuse God's creation in order to indulge the passions. They do not understand the principle of that wisdom which is revealed to all: that we should know and praise God through His creation and that by means of the visible world we should understand whence we came, what we are, for what purpose we were made and where we are going. On the contrary, they travel through this present age in darkness ... with ... ignorance of God. — Maximus The Confessor

I feel increasingly like age is very irrelevant. Quite often, cynicism is confused with wisdom, and my scorn is confused with a knowing, which I don't have. — Laura Marling

I learned that adults were not soaring gods, but rather back-yard birds with broken wingtips.
When you are thirteen, about to free-fall into the real world, discovering the broken wingtips is terrifying. — Janet Turpin Myers

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

David Levithan lives in the best of times and the worst of times, the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief and the epoch of incredulity, the season of Light, and the season of Darkness. He has endeavored in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an Idea which shall not put his readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with him. Whether he shall turn out to the be hero of his own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, time must show. — David Levithan

Prettiness fades after a few years, but elegance only increases with age. — Anne Gracie

Wisdom is not guaranteed with age but is realized through one's sensitivity to humanity and the universe — I. Alan Appt

Why is wisdom so fair? Why is beauty so wise?
Because all else is temporary, while beauty and wisdom are the only real and constant aspects of truth that can be perceived by human means.
And I don't mean the kind of surface beauty that fades with age, or the sort of shallow wisdom that gets lost in platitudes.
True beauty grips your gut and squeezes your lungs, and makes you see with utmost clarity exactly what is before you.
True wisdom then steps in, to interpret, illuminate, and form a life-altering insight. — Vera Nazarian

With age comes wisdom and with wisdom comes age. I guess I too am growing older. — Amanda L. Moritz

With age comes wisdom. You don't need big boobs to be feminine. Look at Liberace. — Joan Rivers

Knowledge pertains to knowing and to intelligence while wisdom has to do with the soundness of judgment. — Pearl Zhu

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death — Lin Yutang

Books are like people: fascinating, inspiring, thought-provoking, some laugh, some meditate, others ache with old age, but still have wisdom: some are disease-ridden, some deceitful; but others are a delight to behold, and many travel to foreign lands; some cry, some teach, others are lots of fun, they are excellent companions and all have individuality - Books are friends. What person has too many friends? — Gladys M. Hunt

Upon This Age, That Never Speaks Its Mind

Upon this age, that never speaks its mind,
This furtive age, this age endowed with power
To wake the moon with footsteps, fit an oar
Into the rowlocks of the wind, and find
What swims before his prow, what swirls behind -
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric; undefiled
Proceeds pure Science, and has her say; but still
Upon this world from the collective womb
Is spewed all day the red triumphant child. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

A lot of who you were in middle age was determined before you had a chance to manipulate, control, or eve understand the things around you. It was no mystery, he thought, why some old people's minds returned to their youth; the wonder of those years, the discoveries, the first experience with the dirty secret of death, and the first stirrings of lust and love were indelible, drawn in luminous colors on clean canvas. Indeed, the first sex act was so mind-boggling that most people could still remember it clearly twenty, thirty, sixty years later. — Nelson DeMille

Contrast is not 'bad' since the contrast we experience still causes us to learn and grow. Expansion never ceases, and that is a beautiful thing. Contrast allows us to see what is not in alignment with our Authentic Selves, and then presents us with opportunity after opportunity to respond from a place of compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, love, joy, gratitude, etc. Thus, when we break the karmic loop we swing back into alignment with Spirit. — Alaric Hutchinson

Maturity does not always come with age; sometimes age comes alone. — John C. Maxwell

He often heard that wisdom comes with age, and he waited, trusting that this wisdom would bring him what he most wanted; that ability to guide his memories and not fall into the traps that they often set for him. — Luis Sepulveda

18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. + 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; a + 20and again, "The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."a + — Anonymous

I find it funny when people try to brag about being younger than me ... like having lived less is an accomplishment. Makes me want to pat them on the head, lol. I'm comfortable with who I am. — Michelle M. Pillow

Let us be banded together as one man; let us contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; let us pray with fervour, let us live in holiness, let us preach constantly, and preach with fire, and let us so live, that we may impress our age, and leave our footprints on the sands of time. — Charles Spurgeon

Mocking the wisdom that comes with age is a fit sport only for those who expect never to attain much of it themselves — Iain M. Banks

Galadriel his sister went not with him to Nargothrond, for in Doriath dwelt Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol, and there was great love between them. Therefore she remained in the Hidden Kingdom, and abode with Melian, and of her learned great lore and wisdom concerning Middle-earth. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I would like to believe in the myth that we grow wiser with age. In a sense my disbelief is wisdom. Those of a middle generation, if charitable or sentimental, subscribe to the wisdom myth, while the callous see us as dispensable objects, like broken furniture or dead flowers. For the young we scarcely exist unless we are unavoidable members of the same family, farting, slobbering, perpetually mislaying teeth and bifocals. — Patrick White

How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age. — Margaret Atwood

The Coming of Wisdom with Time
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth. — W.B.Yeats

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages. — Adam Smith

In one period the grossest ignorance and barbarism prevailed in the world; and afterwards, in a more enlightened age, the most daring infidelity, and contempt of God; so that the world which was once over-run with ignorance, now by wisdom knew not God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God as much as in the most barbarous ages, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Nay, as they increased in science and politeness, they ran into more abundant and extravagant idolatries. — William Carey

Accept the past as the past and realize that each new day you are a new person who doesn't need to carry old baggage into the new day with you. It's amazing how many people ruin the beauty of today with the sorrows of yesterday. Yesterday doesn't exist anymore! For example, if ever I feel foolish or guilty about something I've done, I learn from it and attempt to do better the next time. Shame or guilt serves no one. Such feelings actually keep us down, often lowering the vibrations of those around us, as well. Living in the present moment is the recurring baptism of the soul, forever purifying every new day with a new you. — Alaric Hutchinson

Perhaps I'd been a slow developer, but I was well into my forties before I realized that you don't have to comply with a request just because it's reasonable or reasonably put. Age is the great dis-obliger. You can be yourself and say no. — Ian McEwan

Abraham I cannot understand; in a way all I can learn from him is to be amazed. If one imagines one can be moved to faith by considering the outcome of this story, one deceives oneself, and is out to cheat God of faith's first movement, one is out to suck the life-wisdom out of the paradox. One or another may succeed, for our age does not stop with faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine; it goes further, it turns wine into water. — Johannes De Silentio

I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters. — Louise Penny

Age brought wisdom, but it also brought a genuine gratitude for the happiness of sharing life with someone as much liked as loved. — Colleen McCullough

Sinister is the breath that fills our wings, for what are we? What are we beneath skin and feathers?" His question was not left without an answer; Magnus made good on it. "We are the children of incestuous and obscene demons. We are scavengers. We smell the scent of death carried forth by the winds. And once we are past our decade, our thirst for knowledge and survival dims; and we consider ourselves fortunate. For with age comes wisdom, and with age comes death. A murder of crows awaits us all. — Serban Valentin Constantin Enache

May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Active wisdom
an entire cohort with something new to offer to the world as years of experience combined with continuing health. [p. 52] — Mary Catherine Bateson

Distant singing is heard. Ghostly voices become audible: fragments of lectures remembered, the finely distilled wisdom and passion of seers and poets with which the modern young mind is tempered for the world that blows it to pieces. — Tennessee Williams

My dear, old age is like an airplane flying in a storm. Once you're in it there's nothing you can do. You can't stop a plane, you can't stop a storm, you can't stop time. So you might as well take it easy, with wisdom. — Golda Meir

Great Inititates are characterized less by their cosmic wisdom than by the deep knowledge that they are endless beginners at all times, with an infinity of things to learn — Alan Richardson

Do not dismiss the words of the old;
they possess wisdom,
which comes only with age,
and often speak of things
that the young are too immature
to understand. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the Gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise. — Sophocles

I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings. — Paulo Coelho

Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life you give so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age ... [F]or many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. [Progressive] — Thurgood Marshall

I'm not opposed to aging - even though society is kinder on men than women when it comes to getting old. How can I look at aging as the enemy? It happens whether I like it or not and no one is set apart from growing old; it comes to us all. Youth passes from everyone, so why deny it? I'm proud of my age. I'm proud that I've survived this planet for as long as I have, and should I end up withered, wrinkled and with a lifetime of great wisdom, I'll trade the few years of youth for the sophistication of a great mind ... for however long it lasts. — Donna Lynn Hope

You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness. — Cheryl Strayed

With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding. — Sandra Lake

In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us. — C. G. Jung

I advise everyone to choose a religion based upon the beauty that the religion has brought to the world. There is much to be said about every religion, there is much evil in history written about every religion, and at the end of the day, you're only going to find out which one works after you're dead and if you're lucky, that won't happen soon! Simply put, you believe in the things that you believe in right now, because you were indoctrinated with fear from a very young age, forward. You fear straying a path that you were told you should walk on. So what path should you really walk on? Walk on the path that has created, is creating, and will be creating - beauty. The only real sign of anything worthwhile, is beauty. The true religion is the belief in what is beautiful. So if something creates a beauty in your heart and in the world - walk that path. — C. JoyBell C.

Alfred shook his balding head slowly, with quiet dignity. "You can't threaten me, Haplo. Sartan magic is different from Patryn magic, but it has the same roots and is just as powerful. I haven't used my magic as much as you've been forced by circumstances to use yours. But I am older than you. And you must concede that magic of any type is strengthened by age and by wisdom. — Margaret Weis

I am firmly convinced to-day that, generally speaking, it is in youth that men lay the essential groundwork of their creative thought, wherever that creative thought exists. I make a distinction between the wisdom of age- which can only arise from the greater profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long life- and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thoughts and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of youth. — Adolf Hitler

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past? And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom, it whispers no this will be the last. — Jimi Hendrix

We tried to make a beautiful world here, the voices mumble. There were those who saw the end of civilization as an opportunity to start over, to undo the errors of history
to relive mankind's awkward adolescence with all the wisdom of our modern age. But everything was happening so fast. — Isaac Marion

I liked being with the books: they reminded me of how many ways of thinking existed outside my own - how small and fleeting my pulse was when set alongside those ageing spines. — Joanna Rossiter

With age comes wisdom and confidence, and I don't feel like I'm seeking approval as much as I used to from other people. — Terri Clark

I'm helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are "near enemies" to every great virtue - reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can't possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a "pathological empathy" of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can't help but stay present — Krista Tippett

Actually I feel I'm a better player; more mentally. I guess you get better with age people say. You have a lot more wisdom. — Darrelle Revis

Looking around today, I see a lot of young people who act as if they have all the time in the world, and older persons who think this attitude is alright. It is unfortunate that there are young citizens who still believe life begins at forty and that life before forty is non-scoring, and older citizens who still insist that unless you are old, you have nothing to offer, equating age with wisdom. — Nana Awere Damoah

Squandering time is a luxury of profligate youth, when the years are to us as dollars are to billionaires. Doing the same thing in middle age just makes you nervous, not with vague puritan guilt but the more urgent worry that you're running out of time, a deadline you can feel in your cells. — Tim Kreider

The evening of a well spent youth brings it's lamps with it. — Joseph Joubert

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone. — Oscar Wilde

I've always believed with age comes wisdom. And I find salt and pepper hair to be very attractive. — Gideon Glick

Will and George were doing well in business, and Joe was writing letters home in rhymed verse and making as smart an attack on all the accepted verities as was healthful.

Samuel wrote to Joe, sayings, "I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart not to try to convert your mother. Your last letter only made her think you are not well. Your mother does not believe there are many ills uncurable by good strong soup. She puts your brave attack on the structure of our civilization down to a stomach ache. It worries her. Her faith is a mountain, and you, my son, haven't even got a shovel yet. — John Steinbeck

Although generally our sight diminishes with age; I submit that our vision improves. The older we get, the more clearly we see our life's decisions played out to their logical conclusions. — David C. Maloney

every night, when he didn't want to be alone, or to age or die, with that set expression he assumed which she occasionally recognized on other men's faces, the only common expression of those madmen hiding under an appearance of wisdom until the madness seizes them and hurls them desperately toward a woman's body to bury in it, without desire, everything terrifying that solitude and night reveals to them. — Albert Camus

As you get older, you have your tribe of women that you grow and age gracefully with and you share wisdom with. That's your clan. That's your family. That's your strength. — Sheryl Crow

Wisdom comes with age and experience. — Matthew Skelton

The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress. — Socrates

and Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men" (Luke 2:52), — Romano Guardini

Our reality is colored by our vibration and belief systems. In other words, the experiences we have in the world with other people are dictated by the energy we bring with us wherever we go. — Alaric Hutchinson

Personally I like ageing. With age comes wisdom and I have said it before and I say it again, I will take wisdom over youth any day. — Brad Pitt

Wisdom is one of the few things in human life that does not diminish with age. — Ram Dass

At the time he seemed both ancient and French, but the wisdom that has come with age tells me he was thirty-two and faking the accent. — Joel Derfner

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment ... But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. — Thomas Jefferson

Youth is marked by a breathtaking novelty that diminishes with each year of age - until life becomes a delusive struggle to break routines, escape the ordinary, and rediscover the joy of discovery. — Zack Love

On differing perspectives:

"At birth, we're yanked from a warm, safe place and thrust into a world we have no way of comprehending. Childhood is a constant routine of punishment and confusion. Hell we're depressed and misunderstood as teenagers, then frightened and unprepared as we become adults. In midlife, we watch as our youth slowly slips away; our dreams for greatness becoming pathetic memories. Old age brings loneliness, infirmity, and the constant fear of death."

"At birth, we're rescued from a dark, silent place and ushered into a world full of wonder. Childhood is a magical time, free from responsibility. We're curious and filled with energy as teenagers, and then challenged to reach our full potential as we become adults. In mid-life, we watch as our pretensions slowly slip away, our dreams for happiness finally becoming realized. Old age brings wisdom, wonderful memories, and a passionate love of life. — Rick Reynolds

For time is short and the unknown surrounds us; and it isn't enough just to live unthinking and happy, calmly bearing oppression and only learning wisdom with age. — Bertolt Brecht

Knowledge comes naturally with studying,
and with God's touch, instantly.
Wisdom comes naturally with age,
and with God's touch, immediately. — Matshona Dhliwayo

With age comes a greater wisdom, an ease and comfort with oneself. — Cherie Lunghi

In ancient times, coming-of-age girls sought guidance from the wise women in their communities, but girls today are most often guided by their peers, the media, and a culture that does not honor or support them. It is a time in which girls often disconnect from themselves and start to separate from their mothers. As we begin to create more meaningful and authentic lives for ourselves, we have an opportunity for parallel journeys of growth with our daughters, journeys that would allow us to share our wisdom with them. — Terri Allison

The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on? — Margaret Atwood

One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity. — Anna Quindlen

Age may catch up with you, just never let it over take you. — Benny Bellamacina

Ours is an age that's often obsessed with knowledge at the expense of wisdom. — Mal Fletcher

Except for the shapes of the windows, backlit by the streetlights that dotted the perimeter of the Moosetookalook town square, Liss could see very little in the darkness of the room she shared with her husband. The two front windows were raised as far as they would go, since Liss had been taught at an early age that fresh air was one of nature's best sleep aids. She had never had any reason to doubt that small bit of folk wisdom. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

With age brings wisdom; with youth brings innovation. Combine the two and they are unstoppable. — Ocian Hamel-Smith