431. Old Age; Mortality;
Sensitivity
...in the decline of life shame and
grief are of short duration;
whether it be that we bear easily what we have borne long; or
that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard
others; or, that we look with slight regard upon afflictions to
which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.
Johnson: Rasselas [Narrator]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
532. Anger; Old Age
"Nothing is more despicable than the old age of a passionate
man.* When the vigour of youth fails him, and his amusements
pall with frequent repetition, his occasional rage sinks by decay
of strength into peevishness; that peevishness, for want of
novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the world falls off from
around him, and he is left, as Homer expresses it, to devour his
own heart in solitude and contempt."
Johnson: Rambler #11 (April 24, 1750)
*"Passionate man": those easily and regularly angered.
(See #526, then use your browser's
back button to return here.)
Link
630. Old Age; Pain; Pity;
Sympathy
"If the purpose of lamentation be to excite pity, it is surely
superfluous for age and weakness to tell their plaintive stories;
for pity presupposes sympathy, and a little attention will show
them, that those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is
felt."
Johnson: Rambler #48 (September 1, 1750)
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648. Generation Gap; Old Age
"It has always been the practice of those who are desirous to
believe themselves made venerable by length of time to censure
the new comers into life, for want of respect to gray hairs and
sage experience, for heady confidence in their own
understandings, for hasty conclusions upon partial views, for
disregard of counsels which their fathers and grandfathers are
ready to afford them, and a rebellious impatience of that
subordination to which youth is condemned by nature, as necessary
to its security from evils into which it would be otherwise
precipitated by the rashness of passion and the blindness of
ignorance."
Johnson: Rambler #50 (September 8, 1750)
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649. Corruption; Generation Gap; Old
Age
"Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world,
of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He
recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and
celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his
youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be
expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and
thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence."
Johnson: Rambler #50 (September 8, 1750)
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661. Maturity; Old Age
"...that though they may refuse to grow wise, they must
inevitably grow old; ...that the proper solaces of age are not
music and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those who
are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it;
and that it is therefore in their interest to retire while there
yet remain a few hours of nobler employments."
Johnson: Rambler #55 (September 25, 1750); written from the
fictional voice of "Parthenia," a daughter whose mother views her
as a rival.
Link
672. Economy; Old Age; Poverty
"The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that
every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it
must be avoided generally by the science of sparing. For, though
in every age there are some who, by bold adventures, or by
favorable accidents, rise suddenly to riches, yet it is dangerous
to indulge hopes of such rare events; and the bulk of mankind
must owe their affluence to small and gradual profits, below
which their expense must be resolutely reduced."
Johnson: Rambler #57 (October 2, 1750)
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774. Consolation; Old Age; Wealth
"The industry of man has ... not been wanting in endeavours to
procure comforts for these hours of dejection and melancholy, and
to gild the dreadful gloom with artificial light. The most usual
support of old age is wealth. He whose possessions are large,
and whose chests are full, imagines himself always fortified
against invasions on his authority. If he has lost all other
means of government, if his strength and his reason fail him, he
can at last alter his will; and, therefore, all that have hopes
must likewise have fears, and he may still continue to give laws
to such as have not ceased to regard their own interest.
This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of the dotard, the
last fortress to which age retires, and in which he makes the
stand against the upstart race that seizes his domains, disputes
his commands, and cancels his prescriptions. But here, though
there may be safety, there is no pleasure; and what remains is
but a proof that more was once possessed."
Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750)
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775. Children; Consolation; Old
Age
"Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the
ancients than orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man
who has survived all the companions of his youth, all who have
participated his pleasures and his cares, have been engaged in
the same events, and filled their minds with the same
conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude. He
stands forlorn and silent, neglected or insulted, in the midst of
multitudes, animated with hopes which he cannot share, and
employed in business which he is no longer able to forward or
retard; nor can he find any to whom his life or death are of
importance, unless he has secured some domestic gratifications,
some tender employments, and endeared himself to some whose
interest and gratitude may unite them to him."
Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750)
Link
776. Generation Gap; Old Age;
Youth
"So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the
future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions
and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally
produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends
generally with contempt or pity on either side. To a young man
entering the world, with fulness of hope, and ardour of pursuit,
nothing is so unpleasing as the cold caution, the faint
expectations, the scrupulous diffidence which experience and
disappointments certainly infuse; and the old man wonders in his
turn that the world never can grow wiser, that neither precepts
nor testimonies can cure boys of their credulity and sufficiency;
and that not once can be convinced that snares are laid for him,
till he finds himself entangled.
Thus one generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other,
and the notions of the old and young are like liquors of
different gravity and texture which never can unite. The spirits
of youth, sublimed by health and volatized by passion, soon leave
behind them the phlegmatic sediment of weariness and
deliberation, and burst out in temerity and enterprise. The
tenderness, therefore, which nature infuses, and which long
habits of beneficence confirm, is necessary to reconcile such
opposition: and an old man must be a father to bear with
patience those follies and absurdities which he will perpetually
imagine himself to find in the schemes and expectations, the
pleasures and sorrows of those who have not yet been hardened by
time and chilled by frustration."
Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750)
Link
778. Old Age
"Though age be to every order of human beings sufficiently
terrible, it is particularly to be dreaded by fine ladies, who
have had no other end or ambition than to fill up the day and the
night with dress, diversions, and flattery, and who, having made
no acquaintance with knowledge or business, have constantly
caught all their ideas from the current prattle of the hour, and
been indebted for all their happiness to compliments and treats.
With these ladies, age begins early, and very often lasts long;
it begins when their beauty fades, when their mirth loses its
sprightliness, and their motions its ease. From that time all
which gave them joy vanishes from about them; they hear the
praises bestowed on others, which used to swell their bosoms with
exultation. They visit the seats of felicity, and endeavour to
continue the habit of being delighted. But pleasure is only
received when we believe that we give it in return. Neglect and
petulance inform them that their power and their value are
passed; and what then remains but a tedious and comfortless
uniformity or time, without any motion of the heart or exercise
of the reason?"
Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750)
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780. Old Age; Religion
"However age may discourage us by its appearance from considering
it in prospect, we shall all by degrees certainly be old; and
therefore we ought to inquire what provision can be made against
that time of distress? what happiness can be stored up against
the winter of life? and how we may pass our latter years with
serenity and cheerfulness?
...Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man.
He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into
imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon
him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every
reflection must plunge him deeper, and where he finds only new
gradations of anguish and precipices of horror."
Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750)
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791. Old Age; Time
"So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the
shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily
shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such
expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify,
and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only
excusable in the prime of life."
Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750)
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863. Old Age
"I am afraid, ... that health begins, after seventy, and often
long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had
at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order
of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives, must
grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to
thank for the infirmities of old age."
Johnson: letter to James Boswell (Dec 7, 1782)
Link
870. Old Age
"To secure to the old that influence which they are willing to
claim, and which might so much contribute to the improvement of
the arts of life, it is absolutely necessary that they give
themselves up to the duties of declining years, and contentedly
resign to youth its levity, its pleasures, its frolics, and its
fopperies. It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties
of spring and winter; it is unjust to claim the privileges of
age and retain the playthings of childhood. The young always
form magnificent ideas of the wisdom and gravity of men whom they
consider as placed at a distance from them in the ranks of
existence, and naturally look on those whom they find trifling
with long beards with contempt and indignation, like that which
women feel at the effeminacy of men. If dotards will contend
with boys in those performances in which boys must always excel
them; if they will dress crippled limbs in embroidery, endeavour
at gaiety with faltering voices, and darken assemblies of
pleasure with the ghastliness of disease, they may well expect
those who find their diversions obstructed will hoot them away;
and that if they descend to competition with youth, they must
bear the insolence of successful rivals."
Johnson: Rambler #50 (September 8, 1750)
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881. Futurity; Old Age
"Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state into which it shows us that we must some time
enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing as the event
of which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time
preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to
omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
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1,106. Audacity; Old Age; Time;
Youth
"At our entrance into the world, when health and vigour give us
fair promises of time sufficient for the regular maturation of
our schemes, and a long enjoyment of our acquisitions, we are
eager to seize the present moment; we pluck every gratification
within our reach without suffering it to ripen into perfection,
and crowd all the varieties of delight into a narrow compass;
but age seldom fails to change our conduct; we grow negligent of
time in proportion as we have less remaining, and suffer the last
part of life to steal from us in languid preparations for future
undertakings, or slow approaches to remote advantages, in weak
hopes of some fortuitous occurrence, or drowsy equilibrations of
undetermined counsel. Whether it be that the aged having tasted
the pleasures of man's condition, and found them delusive, become
less anxious for their attainment; or that frequent miscarriages
have depressed them to despair, and frozen them to inactivity;
or that death shocks them more as it advances upon them, and they
are afraid to remind themselves of their decay, or to discover o
their own hearts that the time of trifling is past."
Johnson: Rambler #111 (April 9, 1751)
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1,108. Audacity; Old Age; Youth
"A perpetual conflict with natural desires seems to be the lot of
our present state. In youth we require something of the
tardiness and frigidity of age; and in age we must labour to
recall the fire and impetuosity of youth; in youth we must learn
to respect, and in age to enjoy."
Johnson: Rambler #111 (April 9, 1751)
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1,166. Fame; Old Age; Potential
"It is not uncommon for those who at their first entrance into
the world were distinguished for attainments or abilities, to
disappoint the hopes which they had raised, and to end in neglect
and obscurity that life which they began in honour. To the long
catalogue of the inconveniences of old age, which moral and
satirical writers have so copiously displayed, may be often added
the loss of fame."
Johnson: Rambler #127 (June 4, 1751)
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1,318. Flattery; Old Age;
Respite
"The openness to flattery is the common disgrace of declining
life. When men feel weakness increasing on them they naturally
desire to rest from the struggles of contradiction, the fatigue
of reasoning, the anxiety of circumspection; when they are hourly
tormented by pains and diseases, they are unable to bear any new
disturbance, and consider all opposition as an addition to
misery, of which they feel already more than they can patiently
endure. Thus desirous of peace, and thus fearful of pain, the
old man seldom inquires after any other qualities in those
whom he caresses than quickness in conjecturing his desires,
activity in supplying his wants, dexterity in intercepting
complaints before they approach near enough to disturb him,
flexibility to his present humour, submission to hasty petulance,
and attention to wearisome narrations."
Johnson: Rambler #162 (October 5, 1751)
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1,457. Happiness; Life; Old Age;
Youth
"Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting
to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon
blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are
defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and
prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we
are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not
time remaining to bring them to completion."
Johnson: Rambler #196 (February 1, 1752)
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1,473. Death; Old Age
"A few years make such havoc in human generations that we soon
see ourselves deprived of those with whom we entered the world,
and whom the participation of pleasures or fatigues had endeared
to our remembrance."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
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1,823. Disappointment; Evaluation;
Expectations; Old Age; Satisfaction
"He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires
what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such
an account as will give him satisfaction."
Johnson: Idler #88 (December 22, 1759)
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1,867. Death; Mortality; Old Age
"Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state, into which it shews us that we must sometime
enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing, as the even of
which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time
preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to
omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
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