“Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear... But yours gives most; for mine did only lend me to the world; yours gave to me a friend
“It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem, and in my esteem age is not estimable
“What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light
“I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way, by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else....I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road
“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
“A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time
“Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever
“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
“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age
“While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be
“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul