At Home Instead we look at ageing with positivity, confidence and light heart. Here are just a few of our favourite quotes on ageing.

“Old age is no place for sissies.” 

― Bette Davis, (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989)

Bette (Born Ruth Elizabeth) Davis was certainly no sissy. Famed for her forceful and intense style, she had a reputation as a highly combative leading lady who wouldn’t be pushed around. Known for her unflinching “Bette Davis eyes”, she placed second on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest female stars of all time.

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” 
― Terry Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015)

Sir Terrence “Terry” Pratchett, OBE had a way with words. With more than 85 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages, he was the UK’s best-selling author in the 1990’s. He specialised in fantasy novels, including his Discworld series of around 40 volumes. Terry never reached a particularly old age; he died of Alzheimer’s in 2015, aged 66.

“I was brought up to respect my elders, so now I don’t have to respect anybody.” 
― George Burns (1896-1996)

Born Nathan Birnbaum in New York, George Burns was one of America’s favourite funnymen. Known for his perpetual cigar and dry wit, his career spanned vaudeville, radio, film and TV. Best known for his role as “God”, he was 79 when he won an academy Award for “The Sunshine Boys”. Another quote of his was: “By the time you’re eighty years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” 

“The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in 70 or 80 years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all.”

― Doris Lessing (1919 – 2013)

Doris May Lessing was a British Novelist, poet and playwright with an incisive understanding of human nature. The oldest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, The Times ranked her in the Top 5 of the Greatest Modern British Writers. Another of her quotes was: “As you get older, you don’t get wiser. You get irritable.”

“If I could get back my youth, I’d do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.” 

― Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, playwright and poet who crammed a lot of living into his 46 years on the planet.  One of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s (“The Importance of being Earnest” was his masterpiece) he wrote the definitive novel on ageing: “The Picture of Dorian Gray” in which our hero never ages…as opposed to his portrait.

“The problem with memories is they get more valuable with time, and the places we keep them get weaker with age.” 
― Michael Xavier (American Underground Author, Age unknown)

“But none of this is a surprise. I’ve been expecting to watch you grow older ever since we met. Why should it trouble me?” 
― David Nichols (British Novelist, November 1966 – )

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind…”
― Sophia Loren (Italian Actress, 20 September, 1934 -)

“I had to wait 110 years to become famous. I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible.”  
― Jeanne Louise Calment  (At one time, the world’s oldest woman, 1875-1997)

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” 
― Woody Allen (US Actor, 1935- )

“Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”
― Edward Stanley (Earl of Derby, 1826-1893)

“Do not try to live forever, you will not succeed.”
― George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright, 1856-1950)

“The wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.”
― William Wordsworth (English Poet, 1770-1850)

“At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don’t care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.” 
― Ann Landers (Pen name of Advice Columnist, Eppie Lederer, 1918-2002)

“Because I could not stop for death – He kindly stopped for me.”
― Emily Dickinson (Author, 1830-1886)

We trust that you enjoyed reading these ‘pearls of wisdom’.