On Looking Back

“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

“The fruit of old age is, as I have often said, the memory and abundance of goods previously obtained.”

“Spring typifies youth, and shows the fruit that will be; the rest of life is fitted for reaping and gathering the fruit.”

“The consciousness of a well-spent life and the recollection of many virtuous actions are exceedingly delightful.”

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

“Everything which happens is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring and the fruit in summer.”

Asked to imagine a breakthrough adding twenty years to their lives, older people shifted back toward the preferences of the young. Calm comes from the horizon, not the age.

“Time, yes, that is the finder, the unweariable explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient at last.”

Across nearly nine decades the Harvard Study of Adult Development has kept returning the same result. Neither wealth nor fame nor achievement predicted who aged well. The quality of close relationships did.

“I have had my invitation to this world's festival, and thus my life has been blessed. My eyes have seen and my ears have heard.”

“It was my part at this feast to play upon my instrument, and I have done all I could.”

“For a short term of life is long enough for living well and honourably.”