Old age is second childhood.

-Aristophanes
Nubes ( The Clouds), l.1417.

To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

-Baruch, Bernard Mannes
  In Newsweek, 29  Aug.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Genesis 37:3.

And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Chronicles 29:28.

Theyshall still bring forth fruit inold age; they shall be fat and flourishing.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms 92:14.

Strength and beautyare the blessings of youth; temperance, however, is the flower of old age.

-Democritus
Fragment quoted in H Diels and W Kranz (eds) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol.2 (1952), no.294.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.

-Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
  Coningsby, bk.3, ch.1.

You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of old age: it is when you go out into the streets of London and realize for the first time how young the policemen look.

-Hicks, Sir Edward Seymour
Quoted in C R D Pulling They  Were Singing (1952), ch.7.

A parler humainement, la mort a un bel endroit, qui est de mettre fin a'   la vieillesse. To speak humanely, death has a useful function: it puts an end to old age.

-La Bruye'  re,Jean de
  Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'De l'homme', no.45.

Four spectres haunt the pooröold age, accident, sickness, and unemployment.We are going to exorcise them.We are going to drive hunger from the hearth.We meantobanishtheworkhousefromthehorizonofevery workman in the land.

-Lloyd George (of Dwyfor), David, 1st Earl
  Speech, Reading,1  Jan.

Old age†it's the only disease you don't look forward to being cured of.

-Mankiewicz, Herman
Citizen Kane (with Orson Welles).

   When a man reaches old age, he will die and the same is true of a party.

-Mao Zedong or MaoTse-tung
  Collected in Selected Works (1975), vol.4.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

-Pope, Alexander
  Miscellanies,'Thoughts onVarious Subjects', vol.2.

Still round and round the ghosts of Beauty glide, And haunt the places where their honour died. See how the world its veterans rewards! Ayouth of frolics, an old age of cards.

-Pope, Alexander
  Epistles to Several Persons,'To a Lady', l.241^4.

Then old age and experience, hand in hand, Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong. Huddled in dirt, the reasoning engine lies, Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.

-Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of
  'A SatyrAgainst Mankind', l.25^30 (published1679).

The question that isso clearly in many potential parents' minds: 'Why should we stunt our ambitions and impoverish our lives in order to be insulted and looked down upon in our old age?'

-Schumpeter,Joseph Alois
  Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, ch.14.

The fact is, we are much more afraid of life than our ancestors, and cannot find it inourhearts either tomarry or not tomarry.Marriage isterrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
Virginibus Puerisque,'Virginibus Puerisque', pt.1.

There lies the port; the vessel, puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with meö That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheadsöyou and I are old: Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices.Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows: for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides: and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and hearth: that which we are, we are: One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'Ulysses' (published1842), l.44^70.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  'Do Not Go Gentle IntoThat Good Night'.

I have none of the infirmities of old age, and have lost several I had in my youth. The grand cause is, the good pleasure of God, who does whatever pleases him. The chief means are:1. My constantly rising at four, for about fifty years. 2. My generally preaching at five in the morning; one of the most healthy exercises in the world. 3. My never travelling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles in a year.

-Wesley,John
  Journal entry, 28 Jun.