Quotes About Maturity

The older you get, the better you realize you were.

Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.

What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir James. 'He has one foot in the grave.' 'He means to draw it out again, I suppose.

She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early as possible.

That plain, middle-aged face, with a grave penetrating kindness in it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe strand, but was looking with helpful pity towards the strugglers still tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was afterwards remembered by her as if it had been a promise.

Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning.

He longed now to have the sort of apprenticeship to life which would not shape him too definitely, and rob him of the choice that might come from a free growth.

Something he must read, when he was not riding the pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the talk of men... it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid... knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversations of his elders he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized society.

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentleman whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

Young folks may get fond of each other before they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can only get together; but it soon turns into working day, my dear.

These irregularities of judgment, I imagine, are found even in riper minds than Mary Garth's: our

I protest against all our interest, all our effort at understanding being given to the young skins that look blooming in spite of trouble; for these too will get faded, and will know the older and more eating griefs which we are helping to neglect. In

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behaviour to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilised society.

When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business – that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time.

It was said of him, that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a vigorous animal with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion; knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversation of his elders, he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.

Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit

Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit

Life is half spent before we know what it is.

A lot of middle-aged women are children still trying to find their way.

Women are really beautiful in their forties, and men seem to come of age around the period of their second wife.