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.

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."

Money, Cash, Dollars, Wealth

A fine is a tax for doing wrong.  A tax is a fine for doing well.

It doesn't matter how much you have.  What matters is how much you are willing to give from what you have. (2 Cor 8:12)

It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same. (Sir Philip Gibbs)

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it. (Henry David Thoreau)  --No, it takes a woman to know how to spend it!

Pay your debts as they come due.  However, one debt you can never finish paying is the debt of love you owe one another. (Romans 13:4)

How come when something tickles your fancy, it usually beats up your pocketbook?  (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Budgeting is people telling their money where to go instead of wondering where it went. (John C. Maxwell)

God loves the one who gives gladly. (2 Cor 9:7)

Debt is something you get into when you spend as much as you claim to earn. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Before borrowing money from a friend, it's wise to decide if you need the money more than you need the friend.

Just about the time you think you can make both ends meet, someone moves the ends.

When your ship finally does come in, how come the IRS is on the dock unloading it?  (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Prov 22:7)

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant. (P.T. Barnum)

Most of us would be happy to pay as we go if only we could catch up to where we've been. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it. (William Feather)

Cheer up - birds have bills, but they sing anyway.

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil. (Henry Fielding)

It's not your salary that makes you rich, it's your spending habits. (Charles A. Jaffe)

In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has. (Prov 21:20)

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. (Jonathan Swift)

No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money. (Mat 6:24)

The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means. (Sir Henry Taylor)

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. (Bertrand Russell)

Even if you have a fifteen-bedroom house, you can only sleep in one room at a time.

Earn all you can; save all you can, give all you can.

Don't wait for your ship to come in if you haven't sent one out.

The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. (Psalms 37:21)

It's easy to make a buck, it's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw)

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man! (Lana Turner)

In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin)

Very often he that his money lends

Loses both his gold and his friends.

(C. H. Spurgeon)

Still as of old, men by themselves are priced -

For thirty pieces of silver Judas sold himself, not Christ.

(Hester H. Cholmondeley)

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket. (Will Rogers)

It's not the high cost of living, but the cost of living high.

A man who loses his money, gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better. (Benjamin Disraeli)

He is rich who owes nothing. (French Proverb)

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. (Henry Ford)

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying. (Dale Carnegie)

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gave it to. (Dorothy Parker)

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Ere you consult your fancy, consult your purse. (Benjamin Franklin)

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad. (Benjamin Franklin)

The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any. (Katherine Whitehorn)

Ultimately there is only one way to financial peace, and that is to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. (Dave Ramsey)

Self-worth is more important than net worth. (Talmadge Johnson)

It is necessary to submit to the authorities.... This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: if you owe taxes, pay taxes. (Romans 13:5-7)

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. (Stephen Leacock)

Resolve not to be poor; whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. (Samuel Johnson)

Music is my Soul

Music is the shorthand of emotion. (Leo Tolstoy)

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. (Samuel Butler)

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music. (George Eliot)

Rap is to music as Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.

When you are in tune with Heaven, you will have a song in your heart.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. (Victor Hugo)

He who sings praise, prays.

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,

To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

(William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride")

Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps. (Hans Christian Andersen)

Without music, life would be a mistake. (Friedrich Nietzche)

I write music with an exclamation point! (Richard Wagner)

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. (Berthold Auerbach)

Among God's creatures two, the dog and the guitar, have taken all the sizes and all the shapes, in order not be separated from the man. (Andre Segovia)

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. (Aldous Huxley)

Lean your body forward slightly to support the guitar against your chest, for the poetry of the music should resound in your heart. (Andre Segovia)

I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. (Ludwig van Beethoven)

In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism, & humbug, and we shall want to live more musically. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. (Gottfried Whilhem Leibniz) 

I will sing of Your strength, in the morning I will sing of Your love; for You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble (Psalm 59:16)

Praise the Lord with harp; sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto Him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise. (Psalm 33:2-3)

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God... (Psalm 40:3)

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise from the end of the earth! (Isaiah 42:10)

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing (Psalm 100:2)

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the Earth, burst into jubilant song with music (Psalm 98:4)

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things (Psalm 98:1)

If music be the food of love, play on. (William Shakespeare)

Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe. (Douglas Adams)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. (Henry David Thoreau)

The exercise of singing is delightful to Nature, and good to preserve the health of man. It doth strengthen all parts of the breast, and doth open the pipes. (William Byrd)