Time & Beauty - Growing Old & Staying Young

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. (Martin Buxbaum)

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternatives. (Cato or Maurice Chevalier)

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. (Francis Bacon)

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. (John Ruskin)

Charm... it's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have. (J.M. Barrie)

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. (Thomas Mann)

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. (Mark Twain)

I don't believe in vitamin pills. I swear by men, darling - and as many as possible. (Joan Collins)

The young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation. -Pearl S. Buck

When I am an old woman I shall purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
(Jenny Joseph)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(Dylan Thomas)

I'm not young enough to know everything. (J.M. Barrie)

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young. (Dorothy Canfield Fisher or Arthur Pinero)

Children are a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too. (Lionel Kauffman)

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art. (Stanislaw J. Lec)

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. (Mark Twain)

Age and treachery will always triumph over youth and exuberance.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. (John Barrymore)

It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place. (Abigail Van Buren)

Don't complain about growing old - many, many people do not have that privilege. (Earl Warren)

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. (Lucille Ball)

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. (Jeanne Moreau)

You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. (Bob Hope)

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday, but never remembers her age. (Robert Frost)

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older. Then it dawned on me. They were cramming for their finals.

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

Yesterday is history,

Tomorrow's a mystery.

Today's a gift,

That's why it's called the Present.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. (Carl Sandburg)

As a white candle in a holy place,

So is the beauty of an aged face.

(Joseph Campbell, "The Old Woman")

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. (Victor Hugo)

I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel. (Elizabeth Arden)

Old age is when you look the food over, instead of the waitress.

Few women admit their age... few men act it.

Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the hell happened. (Cora Harvey Armstrong)

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows. (Janette Barber)

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. (Caryn Leschen)

A man has reached middle age when he is cautioned to slow down by his doctor instead of by the police.

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. (Henry Ford)

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

You know you're getting old when you stop buying green bananas.

I don't plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet. (Rita Rudner)

The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible (Judith Regan)

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise (Alden Nowlan)

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday. (John Wayne)

Another candle on your cake?

Well, that's no cause to pout,

Be glad that you have strength enough

To blow the damn thing out.

I love everything that's old - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine. (Oliver Goldsmith)

How to Stay Young: 

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Never let the brain idle. An idle mind is the devil's workshop, and the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on.

7. Surround yourself with love, whether it's family, pets, friends, or whatever.

8. Cherish your health: If it's good, preserve it. If it's unstable, improve it as much as you can.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to anywhere except where the guilt is.

10. Tell people you love them, at every opportunity.

Thoughts on Mid-Life (for Women Only):

Mid-life is when the growth of hair on our legs slows down. This gives us plenty of time to care for our newly acquired mustache.

Mid-life is when you can stand naked in front of a mirror and you can see your rear without turning around.

Mid-life is when you want to grab every firm young lovely in a tube top and scream, "Listen honey, the Roman Empire fell and those will too."

Mid-life is when you look at your know-it-all, beeper-wearing teenager and think, "For this I have stretch marks?"

Mid-life means that you become more reflective.... You start pondering the 'big' questions. What is life? Why am I here? How much Healthy Choice ice cream can I eat before it's no longer a healthy choice?

Mid-life also brings with it an appreciation for what is important. We realize that breasts sag, hips expand, and chins double, but our loved ones make the journey worthwhile. Maybe our bodies simply have to expand to hold all the wisdom and love we've acquired.

Laughter, Joy, and Happiness

Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is. (Maxim Gorky)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. (Dalai Lama)

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig

Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around. ~E.L. Konigsburg

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

When you laugh,

Peace and Joy will flatter your soul.

(Cindy Black, Laugh at the Devil)

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

If things get any better, I may have to hire somebody to help me enjoy it!

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling. (Margaret Lee Runbeck)

Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. (Alan Alda)

There should be something joyous that people see in us that causes them to want the joy we have in us for themselves.

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it.

If you learn to laugh at yourself, you will always have something to make you happy.

The human race has one really effective weapon: laughter. There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all.

A smile is the whisper of a laugh.

He who laughs, lasts.

Earth laughs in flowers. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. (e e cummings)

My brethren, count it all joy.... (James 1:2)

The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like anything. (Mark Twain)

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp on life. (Hugh Sidney)

Laughter is the closest distance between two people. (Victor Borge)

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive. (Mel Brooks)

Someone has said that there are only two kinds of people in the world---- There are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good Morning, Lord," and there are those who wake up  in the morning and say, "Good Lord, it's morning. (Unknown)

You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. (Michael Pritchard)

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. (Ghose Aurobindo)

When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies. (J. M. Barrie)

I have drunken deep of joy,

And I will taste no other wine tonight.

(Shelley, "The Cenci")

I am light as a feather, I am happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. (Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol)

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane. (Jimmy Buffett)

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think. (Clarence Darrow)

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. (Abraham Lincoln)

If you can make a woman laugh, you're seeing the most beautiful thing on Earth. (Keanu Reaves)

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. (Garrison Keiller)

There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them. (Werner Karl Heisenberg)

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. (Guillaume Apollinaire)

A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather. (Benjamin Franklin)

She had a great laugh. It sang. There's something so freeing about laughing with someone. It opens invisible doors. (Martha Manning)

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful. (Bob Hope)

The sound of laughter has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the universe. (Peter Ustinov)

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses. (Russell Baker)

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention. (Greg Anderson)

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. (Clive James)

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can:  all of them make me laugh. (W.H. Auden)

A good laugh is sunshine in a house. (Wiliiam Makepeace Thackeray)

All that is needed to make a happy life is within yourself, in your way of thinking. (Marus Aurelius)

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. (Oscar Wilde)

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. (Benjamin Franklin)

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. (George Bernard Shaw)

Without laughter, life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter that societies highly reward those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. (Steve Allen)

If you're not allowed to laugh in Heaven, I don't want to go there. (Martin Luther)

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis. (Margaret Bonnano)

Happiness is the dividend on a well-invested life.

I'm convinced that the Lord, who created us in His own image, laughs.... At times, laughter must be as sweet an offering to Him as tears and even prayers. (Patsy Clairmont)

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. (Dr. Seuss)

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person. (Audrey Hepburn)

Don't take life too seriously...

It's not permanent.

Always laugh when you can. It's cheap medicine. (Lord Byron)

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;...
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
(John Gillespie Magee - High Flight)

Family & Children

A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark. (Chinese Proverb)

Children are in our lives to teach us about hanging in.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. (Carl Sandburg)

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. (Harrry Truman)

Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child. (Mary MacCracken)

Making a decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. (Elizabeth Stone)

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like, but the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child. (Audrey Jeanne Roberts)

And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor 6:18)

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much. (Jackie Kennedy)

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

I learned about stress management from my kids. Every night after work, I drink some chocolate milk, eat sugary cereal straight from the box, then run around the house in my underwear screaming like a monkey. (Randy Glasbergen)

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve years telling them to sit down and shut up. (Phyllis Diller)

Discipline your son, and he will give you peace, he will bring delight to your soul. (Proverbs 29:17)

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. (Frank A. Clark)

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. (Barbara Jordan)

If you then, as earthly as you are, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask him? (Matthew 7:11)

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. (Anatole Broyard)

It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. (John Gray, "Children Are From Heaven")

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. (Jane Howard, "Families")

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. (George Burns)

Kids are like Legos, lots of fun to make, but sooner or later, they only end up messing up the house.

Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. (Ed Asner)

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. (Chinese Proverb)

A pat on the back will develop character if given hard enough, often enough, and low enough.

There are two lasting things we can give our children - roots and wings.

Hold your child's hand every chance you get.

Children tend to rise to the level of their parents' expectations.

Wrinkles are hereditary - parents get them from their children.

Nothing makes a child as smart as having grandparents.

It is not at his mother's knees, but across them, that a youngster learns his best lessons.

The best coaches are always in the stands.

Mothers hold their children's hands for just a little while... and their hearts forever.

God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers. (Jewish Proverb)

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. (Thackeray, "Vanity Fair")

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Children are a poor man's wealth. (Danish Proverb)

A family is a unit composed not only of children, but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. (Ogden Nash)

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are. (Louisa May Alcott)

Small children give you headaches; big children heartaches. (Russian Proverb)

Be nice to your kids; they'll choose your nursing home.

The things about my mother that I resented as a boy are the things that I am most grateful for as a man. (Andy Horner, founder of Premier Designs)

A family tradition is when you do the same old thing - only it's still fun.

Being a grandparent is vastly different from being a parent. I'm not raising these sweet babies - they have their own Mommy and Daddy who are doing an expert job. That leaves me free to just enrich their lives. In other words, I don't need to bake the cake, I can just apply the icing. (Suzanne Dale Ezell)

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind you that there are children more awful than your own.

If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children."

As a young mother, I asked the Lord to teach me of Himself and of myself through my children. He gave me eight children. Apparently, I had a lot to learn. (Helen Widger Middlebrooke, Lessons for A Super Mom)

We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in.

Mothers of teens now undershand why some animals eat their young.

Lessons Learned From My Children:

1. A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house 4 inches deep.

2. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and roll over them with rollerblades, they can ignite.

3. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42-pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.

4. When you hear the toilet flush and someone says "uh oh," it's already too late.

5. Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it. (Please don't try to prove this at your house)

6. Most Legos can pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old.

7. Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

8. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

9. Always look in the oven before you turn it on.

10. Cats throw up twice their body weight when made dizzy by going through the spin cycle on the washing machine.

Mommy Test

I was out walking with my then 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I asked her not to do that. "Why?"

"Because it's been laying outside and it is dirty and probably has germs."

At this point, she looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Wow! How do you know all this stuff?"

Uh," I was thinking quickly, "...all moms know this stuff. Um, it's on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy."

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

Oh...I get it!" she beamed,  "So if you flunk, you have to be the Daddy."