It is
a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are
left for execution, and are daily expecting the
death-warrant; but it is not anything very capital
we quit. We are, at the close of life, only hurried
away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, from
sleepless nights and unamusing days, from weakness,
ugliness, and nervous tremors; but we shall all meet
again in another planet, cured of all our defects.
-- Sydney Smith
1771-1845, British
Writer, Clergyman
Being
over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our
friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the
dead and the dying as on a battlefield.
-- Muriel Spark
1918-, British
Novelist
When a
noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline
that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
-- Germaine De Stael
1766-1817,
French-Swiss Novelist
A
healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the
happiest creature living.
-- Sir Richard Steele
1672-1729, British
Dramatist, Essayist, Editor