Seneca the Younger Quotes

Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked.

Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.

Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.

There's nothing more arrogant or conceited than youth, and there's nothing other than machinery that can replace youth.

I've been a golden boy for too long.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They'll tell you.

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates... or with big dogs.

Being seventy is not a sin.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

I thought it must be desperate to be old. To wake up in the morning and remember that you were ancient - and so behave that way. I thought old people were full of aches and pains and horrible illnesses.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.

When people are self-entitled for no reason, just with anything, that bothers me. It's like waiting for someone to cross the road, and they walk slower because they know you're waiting. I like all the credit due in the places that it's supposed to be due.

Smart, well-meaning people get it wrong when they start believing that the world owes them something and that the rules are different for them.

Anybody can get bigheaded once they know the seat cannot be pulled out from under them.

The NBA's chosen ones think I'm setting a bad example? I think they need to look around and stop taking themselves so seriously.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you're above everybody else.

I learned a woman is never an old woman.

These guys are so old they're eligible for meals on wheels.

Those who insist on the dignity of their office, show they have not deserved it.

We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves.

A couple of people I knew went to university apart from me, but all the way through I was the smartest kid in the school. That's luck, but I was proud of it. And I was also proud of doing well without trying. As you get older, and it took me a long time to realise it, that's a disgusting attitude, revolting.

I've worked with some actors who have such thick skins and think they are so extraordinary. I'll think, 'Have you stopped learning?' They stop listening to directors or other actors and do the same thing again and again.

Of course I've had a problem with people taking me seriously because of my age. People are always going do that because you're less experienced; you haven't lived as much.

I don't mind being older. I'm proud of my age. I've achieved a lot. It's the same thing with Mick and the Stones. They should be revered and respected. Isn't it strange that now we're living longer we have so much less respect for old age? Perhaps it's a less valuable commodity?