“It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1875 · American poet, at his fiftieth college reunion
Chapter 5
On Late Blooming
“Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1875 · American poet, cataloguing the late bloomers
“It was only when an old man that I became acquainted with Greek literature.”
Cicero, c. 44 BC · Roman statesman, speaking through Cato the Elder at eighty-four
“He grew old learning many a fresh lesson every day.”
Solon, c. 558 BC · Athenian lawgiver and poet, quoted by Cicero
“They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.”
Psalm 92, c. 900 BC · Hebrew psalm for the Sabbath day
In Okinawa there is no word for retirement. There is ikigai, roughly the reason you get up in the morning, and in the longevity research nobody asked the question failed to have an answer.
Dan Buettner, 2008 · journalist who mapped the world's longest-lived communities
“Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842 · English poet, in the voice of the aged Ulysses
Following more than six thousand adults for fourteen years, researchers found that people reporting a clear sense of purpose lived longer, at every age of adult life.
Patrick Hill and Nicholas Turiano, 2014 · psychologists studying purpose and mortality
“He plants his trees to serve a race to come.”
Statius, c. 44 BC · Roman poet, quoted by Cicero on the old farmers of the Sabine hills
“'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842 · English poet, in the voice of the aged Ulysses
“For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1875 · American poet, at his fiftieth college reunion
Free to read, always. Liking a verse or leaving a comment happens in the app, so the conversation has a name attached to it.