Quotes About Maturity

Très vite dans la vie il a été trop tard. À dix-huit ans il était déjà trop tard.

For several weeks she has sometimes wished she had a bed, or something akin to a bed, right there where she was, a bed on which to lay this heavy, leaden body, this body so difficult to move, this thankless and tender maturity, just on the verge of falling down upon an unresponsive, all-devouring earth. Ah, what is this body with which she suddenly feels herself saddled? Whatever became of the indefatigable, birdlike body that had been hers up till now?

la possibilité de jeter le masque en toutes choses est l'un des rares avantages que je trouve à vieillir

Lo guardé a mi servicio; su presencia me sirve de advertencia, quizá de castigo. No había querido dejar tuerto a aquel miserable. Pero tampoco había querido que un niño que me amaba muriera a los veinte años.

Niettemin ben ik op de leeftijd gekomen waarop het leven voor ieder mens een aanvaarde nederlaag is.

I have nevertheless reached the age where life, for every man, is accepted defeat.

Pero de todos modos he llegado a la edad en que la vida, para cualquier hombre, es una derrota aceptada

You only grow up by living through the shit that life throws at you

Adulthood, for all its opportunities, meant the simultaneous accumulation of loss.

That was the great thing about being not-young: knowing through practical experience that feelings, even the worst of them, calm down and eventually ease. They're probably not gone forever—that was another thing I'd learnt: the notion of 'closure' is unrealistic. If I'd felt an emotion once, it stayed on file for-ev-er and could be reactivated if the conditions were right—or, more accurately, wrong.

I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled.

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…To be alive is to be vulnerable' Madeleine L'Engle

Even she couldn't believe she'd spent so much money on household appliance. Money that she could just as easily have spend on handbags or bottles of wine. The only conclusion she could draw was that she was finally grown-up. Which was funny because in her head she was still sixteen and trying to decide what to do when she left school.

I'll be fifty and, seriously, what's the age when a person finally feels safe and secure? Because I really thought it would have happened by now.

It's all right if this part of your journey is not pleasant. Part of your repatterning is learning to be with unpleasantness in a healthy way. The mature and sober person knows that on some days things simply feel rotten, and that is okay. You are learning to move through distress by simply being with it, without the need to overeat or to act out in any other way.

T]horoughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie. — Carl Jung, Stages of Life

Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself.

Many of us know in our hearts that we never really grew up. The problem isn't that we're lost or apathetic, narcissistic or materialistic. The problem is we're terrified.

Someone with whom we have a lifetime's worth of lessons to learn is someone whose presence in our lives forces us to grow.

Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts.

It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire.

There is an earned innocence, I believe, which is as much to be honored as the innocence of children.

When we are children, when we are young, it is natural to love our friends, to be generous to them, to forgive their faults.. But as we grow old and have to earn our bread, friendship does not endure so easily. We must always be on our guard. Our elders no longer look after us, we are no longer content with those simple pleasures of children. Pride grows in us – we wish to become great or powerful or rich, or simply to guard ourself against misfortune.

I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.