41 Timeless Old Quotes

In a world constantly rushing forward, there’s something profoundly comforting about the timeless wisdom of old quotes. These nuggets of insight have endured through the ages, offering guidance, reflection, and inspiration across generations. Whether you're seeking motivation, solace, or a fresh perspective, our handpicked compilation of the top 41 timeless old quotes has something for everyone. Dive into this treasure trove of enduring wisdom and let the words of the past illuminate your present.

1. “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” - H.L. Mencken

2. “I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.” - Virginia Woolf

3. “I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.” - Leo Tolstoy

4. “Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.” - robert heinlein

5. “You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.” - Michael Pritchard

6. “Our challenge is to join forces of the old and the new- experience and experiment, history and destiny, the world of man and the new world of science- but always in accordance with the never-changing word of God.” - Thomas S. Monson

7. “I am too young to be called wise and I am too old to be called young.” - Santosh Kalwar

8. “O: Hey youngman, you should respect me!Y: Hey oldman, you should understand me!” - Toba Beta

9. “...you never knows where a spark may drop and a fire begin to run.” - George Manville Fenn

10. “A Second Childhood.”When all my days are endingAnd I have no song to sing,I think that I shall not be too oldTo stare at everything;As I stared once at a nursery doorOr a tall tree and a swing.Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangsOn all my sins and me,Because He does not take awayThe terror from the treeAnd stones still shine along the roadThat are and cannot be.Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for wine,But I shall not grow too old to seeUnearthly daylight shine,Changing my chamber’s dust to snowTill I doubt if it be mine.Behold, the crowning mercies melt,The first surprises stay;And in my dross is dropped a giftFor which I dare not pray:That a man grow used to grief and joyBut not to night and day.Men grow too old for love, my love,Men grow too old for lies;But I shall not grow too old to seeEnormous night arise,A cloud that is larger than the worldAnd a monster made of eyes.Nor am I worthy to unlooseThe latchet of my shoe;Or shake the dust from off my feetOr the staff that bears me throughOn ground that is too good to last,Too solid to be true.Men grow too old to woo, my love,Men grow too old to wed;But I shall not grow too old to seeHung crazily overheadIncredible rafters when I wakeAnd I find that I am not dead.A thrill of thunder in my hair:Though blackening clouds be plain,Still I am stung and startledBy the first drop of the rain:Romance and pride and passion passAnd these are what remain.Strange crawling carpets of the grass,Wide windows of the sky;So in this perilous grace of GodWith all my sins go I:And things grow new though I grow old,Though I grow old and die.” - G.K. Chesterton

11. “Respect the young and chastise your elders. It's about time the world was set aright.” - Vera Nazarian

12. “He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages.” - John Piper

13. “Don't you know that love isn't just going to bed? Love isn't an act, it's a whole life. It's staying with her now because she needs you; it's knowing you and she will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures -- when all that's on the shelf and done with. Love -- why, I'll tell you what love is: it's you at seventy-five and her at seventy-one, each of you listening for the other's step in the next room, each afraid that a sudden silence, a sudden cry, could mean a lifetime's talk is over.” - Brian Moore

14. “Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born.” - Karl Lagerfeld

15. “The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air.It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies.Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night.The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again.When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.It is your immortal inspiration.” - Vera Nazarian

16. “We were young. Everyone was young in those days. That’s the main complaint you hear from people who are getting old. You stop seeing young people. You begin to wonder if there are any left and whether there were only young people when you were young.” - Lloyd Jones

17. “I wondered if that's what aging felt like. That desire and reality were dueling until the day you die, that nobody every got to a place of peace. I had always wanted to get old so I didn't have to care anymore, but I began to think that it would be best just to skip the getting older part and just die.” - Portia De Rossi

18. “Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.” - Nikolai Gogol

19. “Witchcraft had once been widely used before cursed by the society. I see today the society presumes technology will have a different treatment.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

20. “You see yourself as if old and wise.I see you really miss your childhood.” - Toba Beta

21. “Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

22. “Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.Yes, murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; and when they grow older they know it.” - Oscar Wilde

23. “I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,Stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine, one of the nation, of many nations, the smallest the same and the the largest” - Walt Whitman

24. “People forget that old women were young once, but d'you think we old women forget? In my heart, I'm still thirty.” - Megan Chance

25. “Old folks live on memory, young folk live on hope.” - Gayla Reid

26. “تخيلات الشباب عن الشيخوخة ضلال، تخيلات الشيخوخة عن الشباب حسرات.” - نجيب محفوظ

27. “It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.” - Robert Ingersoll

28. “There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

29. “At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” - Chris Van Allsburg

30. “Decker went to Greece a few summers ago and showed me pictures from his trip. "Aren't these awesome?" he had said, pointing out photographs of the ancient ruins."Awesome" I agreed, but I felt dizzy. The ruins were just a reminder that what had been was no longer. That everything we are will be gone someday. That I will be forgotten.” - Megan Miranda

31. “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old” - Peter Drucker

32. “But that was New Orleans for you. The old didn’t die here. They were just forgotten.” - Amanda Stevens

33. “It is always in season for old men to learn.” - Aeschylus 525456 BC

34. “Ik ben niet bevreesd, noch voor de ouderdom noch voor de dood, maar berusting is me schrikbeeld. Nooit zou ik aan de oevers waar braafheid en gezapigheid wonen, willen aanleggen. Ik ben nu vijfentachtig, ik schrijf nog steeds en ik zou nog tot liefhebben in staat zijn.” - claire goll

35. “A man's life is all he has. When you're old, it's all you'll ever have.” - Miguel Syjuco

36. “Off with the old and on with the new and never a second's thought between.” - Helen Hodgman

37. “My God,' he gasped, 'you're fun to kiss.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

38. “A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul.” - Brennan Manning

39. “He really had experienced every tiniest increment of time in the four decades since then, and yet here he was surprised to be suddenly old and crippled. Turned out the rope didn't care if you noticed every daisy on the path to the gallows.” - Chris Cleave

40. “At a certain age [...] you start thinking you might have learned something when you were young if you hadn't already been so smart.” - Mark Jenkins

41. “When someone says they feel old, I always want to ask them why they feel old. Time passes for everyone. No one is exempt.” - Donna Lynn Hope