George Wald Quotes

It's paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.

The minute you're born, you're getting older.

Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.

I keep thinking how young can you die from old age

The world's oldest woman passed away at 116. They keep dying. I think that title may be cursed.

Very odd, old age. Always knew it would happen, if I was lucky. I just didn't expect it so soon.

The brief span of our poor unhappy life to its final hour Is hastening on; and while we drink and call for gay wreaths, Perfumes, and young girls, old age creeps upon us, unperceived.

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.

Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh.

I expect my life to end pretty soon. You know, I'm 71 years old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakable faith.

The good thing about being old, is you don’t have to worry about dying young.

When you die at 72, no matter what you die of, it's natural causes. Even if you get hit by a truck, it's natural causes. 'Cause if you was younger, you'd have got out the way!

What makes me so certain that the natural human lifespan is far in excess of the actual one is this. Among all my autopsies (and I have performed over 1000), I have never seen a person who died of old age. In fact, I do not think that anyone has ever died of old age yet. We invariably die because one vital part has worn out too early in proportion to the rest of the body.

I want to die young. I think it's awful to get old, and sickness is ugly.

When you start thinking about death more than sex, you know you're getting old.

I'm 61 years old. I'm not that fearful of the future, period. I'm not going to see that much of it.

I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions": "Can't do it now." "Then put it on hold." This is one's strategy for coping with old age, and with death--because one can't die with so many obligations in storage. Our clever species, so fertile and resourceful in denying its weaknesses.

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.

People talk philosophically, Oh, I don't want to live past 100.' You know, I'd like to hear them say that when they're 99.

The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age.

Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary.

An old man who cannot bid farewell to life appears as feeble and sickly as the young man who is unable to embrace it.

Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.

You can fix it as soon as you get up - you brush and use mouthwash - but there’s something about knowing you woke up with hot-mothball mouth that makes you feel old. I think God designed our mouths to die first to help us slowly transition to the grave.