Cicero

For myself, I had rather be an old man a somewhat shorter time than an old man before my time.

Let there be only a proper husbanding of strength, and let each man proportion his efforts to his powers.

Which then of the two would you prefer to have given to you--bodily strength like that, or intellectual strength like that of Pythagoras?

In fine, enjoy that blessing when you have it; when it is gone, don't wish it back--unless we are to think that young men should wish their childhood back, and those somewhat older their youth!

Active exercise, therefore, and temperance can preserve some part of one's former strength even in old age.

The man who aims at this may possibly become old in body--in mind he never will.

These are the exercises of the intellect, these the training grounds of the mind: while I sweat and labour on these I don't much feel the loss of bodily strength.

For a man who is always living in the midst of these studies and labours does not perceive when old age creeps upon him.

What a splendid service does old age render, if it takes from us the greatest blot of youth!

For when appetite is our master, there is no place for self-control; nor where pleasure reigns supreme can virtue hold its ground.

It is to show you that, if we were unable to scorn pleasure by the aid of reason and philosophy, we ought to have been very grateful to old age for depriving us of all inclination for that which it was wrong to do.

For pleasure hinders thought, is a foe to reason, and, so to speak, blinds the eyes of the mind.

Why, because, far from being a charge against old age, that it does not much feel the want of any pleasures, it is its highest praise.

Nor was I, in fact, ever wont to measure my enjoyment even of these banquets by the physical pleasures they gave more than by the gathering and conversation of friends.

I am thankful to old age, which has increased my avidity for conversation, while it has removed that for eating and drinking.

Why, what blessings are these--that the soul, having served its time, so to speak, in the campaigns of desire and ambition, rivalry and hatred, and all the passions, should live in its own thoughts, and, as the expression goes, should…

Indeed, if it has in store any of what I may call the food of study and philosophy, nothing can be pleasanter than an old age of leisure.

What pleasures are there in feasts, games, or mistresses comparable to pleasures such as these?

These are not hindered by any extent of old age, and seem to me to approach nearest to the ideal wise man's life.

In fact, old age, especially when it has enjoyed honours, has an influence worth all the pleasures of youth put together.

From which may be deduced what I once said with universal applause, that it was a wretched old age that had to defend itself by speech.

Neither white hairs nor wrinkles can at once claim influence in themselves: it is the honourable conduct of earlier days that is rewarded by possessing influence at the last.

What then are the physical pleasures to be compared with the reward of influence?

Those who have employed it with distinction appear to me to have played the drama of life to its end, and not to have broken down in the last act like unpractised players.

Yet all these faults are softened both by good character and good education.