Nods and Becks
Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead centre of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.
Adenauer Konrad 1876-1967
I havn't asked you to make me young again. All I want is to go on getting older.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.
Blunden Edmund 1896-1974
‘Report on Experience'
I have been young, and now am not too old;
And I have seen the righteous forsaken,
His health, his honour and his quality taken.
This is not what we were formerly told.
Browning Robert 1812-1889
´A Blot in the „Scutcheon"
I was so young, I loved him so, I had
No mother, God forgot me, and I fell.
Butler Samuel 1835-1902
The Way of All Flesh
Young as he was, his instinct told him that the best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Byron Lord 1788-1824
Don Juan
‘Twas stange that one so young should thus concern
His brain about the action of the sky;
If you think ‘twas philosophy that this did,
I can't help thinking puberty assisted.
Cocteau Jean 1889-1963
The joy of the young is to disobey - but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
Crisp Quentin
The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
Eliot T.S. 1888-1965
The young feel tired at the end of an action;
The old at the beginning.
Ford Henry 1863-1947
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Herford Oliver
Only the young die good.
Johnson Samuel 1709-1784
Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
Kingsley Charles 1819-1875
The Water Babies ‘Young and Old'
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away:
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
Lorenz Konrad 1903-1989
On Agression
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.
Nicolson Harold 1886-1968
The worst thing, I fear, about being no longer young, is that one is no longer young.
Picasso Pablo 1881-1973
It takes a long time to become young.
Plautus c.250-184 BC
Bacchides
He whom the gods favour dies young.
Rubinstein Arthur 1888-1982
When I was young, I used to have successes with women because I was young. Now I have successes with women because I am old. Middle age was the hardest part.
Sarah Ist Duchess of Marlborough 1660-1744
(refusing marriage offer from Duke of Somerset)
If were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John. Duke of Marlborough.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Richard III
So wise so young, they say, do never live long.
Shaw George Bernard 1856-1950
Fanny's First Play
It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock
them and keep them up to date.
Smith Logan Pearsall 1865-1946
Afterthought's Age and Death'
The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood.
Springsteen Bruce 1949-
‘Born to Run'
We gotta get out while we're young,
‘Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
‘The Gardener's Daughter'
Half light, half shade,
She stood, a sight to make an old man young.
Thomas Dylan 1914-1953
‘Fern Hill'
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sand in my chains like the sea.
Toscanini Arturo 1867-1957
When I was very young, I kissed my first woman, and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. Believe me, never since have I wasted any more time on tobacco.
Twain Mark 1835-1910
Consider well the proportion of things. It is better to be a young June bug, than an old bird of paradise.
Wilde Oscar 1854-1900
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
‘The French Revolution, as it Appeared ...'
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!
Yeats William Butler 1865-1939
‘All Things can Tempt Me'
When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs,
That one believed he had a sword upstairs.