AGE
- LIFE BEST YEARS
Meaning
of life
EACH AGE HAS ITS OWN VIEWS OF LIFE
Age can change the way we feel about our lives. Each age has its
own experiences and ways of living and feeling life. Youth
involves an intensity of positive feelings that aged people do
not have.
Maturity and old age involve new experiences, truths and
reflections, opening the way to new values and to a deeper
meditation about the meaning of our lives.
No young man believes he shall ever die
William Hazlitt, 1778-1830,
ensaísta britânico, The Feeling of Immortality in Youth
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back
any more – the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the
sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us
on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort – to death; the
triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the
handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year
grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires – and expires,
too soon, too soon – before life itself.
Joseph Conrad, 1857-1924,
English writer, Youth
Young men's minds are
always changeable, but when an old man is concerned in a matter,
he looks both before and after.
Homer, IX century b.C.,
Greek poet, Iliad
There is always one moment
in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
Graham Green, 1904-1991,
English writer, The Power and the Glory
Life is half spent before
we know what it is.
George Herbert, 1593-1633,
Scottish poet, Jacula Prudentum
Each age has its own
truths, its experiences, its secrets.
E. Morin, French
philosopher and sociologist, Method V
Comments
Youth and Old age
HARSH
OLD
AGE
Life best
years. Age and
Meaning
of life
In the ancient tradition of Rome and Greece, old age often
represents a kind of purgatory; the debility, the end of big
dreams, and the pain and the proximity of death which cause lack
of meaning in life.
Harsh old age will soon
enshroud you - ruthless age which stands someday at the side of
every man, deadly, wearying, dreaded even by the gods
Homero, IX Century a. C.,
Greek poet, Hymn To Aphrodite
Life’s finest days, for us poor human beings, fly first.
Virgil, 70 a.C.- 19 a. C.,
Roman poet, Georgics
At eighteen our convictions
are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in
which we hide.
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
1896-1940, American writer, Bernice Bobs her Hair
I should describe old age as a kind of incurable disease.
Seneca, Roman philosopher
and politician, Letters to Lucilius
Nothing is more
dishonourable then an old man, bent by his old age, without any
other proof that he lived, except his own age.
Seneca, Roman philosopher
and politician, De Tranquillitate Animi
An old man in his rudiments
is a disgraceful object.
Seneca, Roman philosopher
and politician, Letters to Lucilius
Old-age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first;
Weak, sickly, full of pains, in every breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death.
C. Churchill, 1731-1764,
English poet, Gotham
Men of age object too much,
consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and
seldom drive business home to the full period, but content
themselves with a mediocrity of success.
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626,
English philosopher and politician, Essays
The time remaining to old
man are marked by relative apathy and indolence, and is all the
closer to the end.
Seneca, Roman philosopher
and politician, Letters to Lucilius
Take advantage of all the
moments of youth, because old age is never late. Enjoy yourself
while you are in the spring of life.
Ovidius, 43 b. C. - 17 a.
C, Roman writer, The Art of Love
Years pass and go by as the
water; the wave that has moved before our eyes, like the time
that passes, will not return again. One must take advantage of
his youth. No matter how happy we are, age escapes from us
rapidly, and nothing is as before.
Ovidius, 43 b. C. - 17 a.
C, Roman writer, The Art of Love
Comments
Youth and Old age
SHAKESPEARE SATIRE
Life best years. Age and
Meaning
of life
Shakespeare: burlesque satire to the roles of man, in his
different ages, particularly the older ones.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
William Shakespeare,
1564-1616, English poet, As You Like It
Comments -
Youth and Old age
See also:
Happiness
Philosophies of Life
Life is Dream
Life is Short
Life is Pain
Death
Humour about life
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