Great Throughts Treasury

"Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."

"Ageism is any discrimination against people on the basis of chronological age – whether old or young. It’s responsible for an enormous neglect of social resources."

"Learning and sex until rigor mortis."

"Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses."

"Men and women approaching retirement age should be recycled for public service work, and their companies should foot the bill. We can no longer afford to scrap-pile people."

"At no time in life is there a lack of opportunity to rebuild and regroup."

"Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many."

"By the year 2020, the year of perfect vision, the old will outnumber the young."

"Dare to stand before those you fear and speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."

"I'm having a glorious old age. One of my greatest delights is that I have outlived most of my opposition."

"My goal is to do something outrageous every day."

"Few people know how to be old."

"Speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes, for well-aimed slingshots can topple giants."

"Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes."

"Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week."

"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion."

"The ultimate indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name."

"There must be a goal at every stage of life! There must be a goal!"

"When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say."

"The worst indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name."