Friday, May 22, 2015

Quotes about Maturity

Image of a mature man and woman
Faye and Dick by Ohsusana of Morguefile
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.  Wilhelm Stekel

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice; and that is, until we have stopped saying “it got lost” and say "I lost it."  Sydney J. Harris

To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity. Edward Weeks 

Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.  Franklin P. Adams 

As you get older, and felt yourself to be at the center of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering.  Thomas Hardy 

As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things; but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other. Isak Dinesen 

Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.  Woody Allen

Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty. James Russell Lowell  

People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were. Goethe 

As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.  Bruce Lee

How good we all are, in theory, to the old; and how in fact we wish them to wonder off like old dogs, die without bothering us, and bury themselves. Edgar Watson Howe 

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak; who do not drink their tea, though they always said tea was such a comfort. Edna St. Vincent Millay 

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age. Victor Hugo 

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. Pascal 

Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he becomes incapable of vivid pleasure. Giacomo Leopardi  

The Indian summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth and tone, but never hustled. Henry Adams  

It is well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived.  For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us? Montaigne  

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. Ogden Nash

The old, like children talk to themselves, for they have reached that hopeless wisdom of experience which knows that though were one to cry it in the streets to multitudes, or whisper it in a kiss to one’s beloved, the only ears that can ever hear one’s secret are one’s own. Eugene O’Neill  

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him. Francois Mauriac 

Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. Plato 

A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play. Nietzsche 

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.  Samuel Ullman

And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale. Shakespeare

Is life so wretched? Isn’t it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up. Dag Hammarskjold 

From forty to fifty a man is at heart either a stoic or a satyr. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero 

Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. Unknown

When we rejoice in our fullness, then we can part with our fruits with joy. Tagore 

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.  F. Scott Fitzgerald 

After thirty, a man wakes up sad every morning, excepting perhaps five or six, until the day of his death. Emerson 

Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing; it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up.  Bernard Cooke

The wisest man is just a boy who grieves that he’s grownup. Vincenzo Cardarelli 

When a middle aged man says in a moment of weariness that he is half dead, he is telling the literal truth. Elmer Davis  

The mere process of growing old together will make our slightest acquaintances seem like bosom-friends. Logan Pearsall Smith

There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine. Logan Pearsall Smith 

Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute. Charles Caleb Colton

The blush that flies at seventeen is fixed at forty-nine. Rudyard Kipling   

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.  Jules Feiffer

There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not go on to flower. There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is subsequently produced. Confucius 

There are people who are beautiful in dilapidation, like old houses that were hideous when new. Logan Pearsall Smith

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Bible quote

How do you know the fruit is ripe?  Simply because it leaves the branch. Andre Gide

Old men grasp more at life than babies, and leave it with much worse grace than young people.  It is because all their labors having been for this life, they perceive at last their trouble lost. Rousseau 

To be adult and mature is to be alone. Jean Rostand 

We are like thistle-down blown about by the wind; up and down, here and there, but not one in a thousand ever getting beyond seed-hood.  Samuel Butler 

Middle age is when your age starts to show around the middle. Bob Hope 

Youth is cause; effect is age; so with the thickening of the neck we get data. Djuna Barnes

I began my comedy as its only actor and I come to the end as its only spectator. Antonio Porchia 

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities. E. B. White