Charles H. Townes Quotes

I think the most important thing is to keep active and to hope that your mind stays active.

To resist the frigidity of old age, one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart. And to keep these in parallel vigor one must exercise, study, and love.

It’s better to wear out than rust out.

I am in control of how I age, and I am in control of my health.

When you turn 60, the key is to not stop moving. Once you start to stop moving, you rust. You got to just keep going.

We all want to look younger, become stronger and healthier and live longer.

If I want to run around a field when I'm 70, I would like to have that option.

All I can say to you, if you look after your health, eat the right stuff, do enough exercise, keep your mind active, you might be around when you're 100 having this conversation with someone.

You can't help getting older, but you can help yourself from becoming old and infirm, in mind as well as body.

I think it'd be wonderful if we could train young girls to be active in lots of ways and that they then wouldn't have to age at the same rate that they would if they were not more active. In other words, more physical fitness and not just the sporty kind, but the yoga, which is really important.

At my age, my greatest satisfaction is being able to maintain good health.

I'm optimistic, and I have a lot of goals. And I obey the laws of nature: I eat, exercise, and rest properly. But mostly it's about keeping the mind engaged. My grandmother lived to 104, and she had all of her faculties. I'm physically active and devout - just not as Buddhistic as she was.

Exercise is the fountain of youth, I believe.

We assume that healthy habits are a good idea, but in and of themselves, they are not the reason we're going to be active at age 95 or 100. The body works in more complex ways.

The hell with the aging process. It happens to everyone - you just keep your mind active, you keep physically active.

We have to stay healthy no matter how old we are.

I'm trying to live until I'm at least 65 or 70, so I might as well try and stay healthy until at least that long.

I think I look good for my age. I've always looked younger than I really am. I'm 67 and I look about, maybe 62 or something like that. And I think my healthy lifestyle has paid off. I suffer from osteoarthritis. That's genetic and there's nothing I can do about that, except to try and not jump up and down, but rather swim and bike, instead of jumping up and down.

There was a show in which these scientists shared the secrets of the world's oldest living people, people still functioning past 100 years-old. They found that they exercised everyday, they ate in proportion, that they had a social network of family and friends, and that they had some sort of faith. So, that's what I'm doing now, very consciously. Instead of working out three times a week, I do something physical, like a one-hour walk everyday.

Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works.

I cycle, which is a healthy thing for an 80-year-old to do. I rarely go further than five miles, but in those five miles I can get to 80 percent of the places I want to go.

My mother was a P.E. teacher, and she was kind of a fanatic about fitness and nutrition growing up, so it was ingrained in me at a young age. As I get older, I'm finding out it's not about getting all buffed up and looking good. It's more about staying healthy and flexible.

As we live longer and healthier for longer, we need to keep ourselves busy... the diary is pretty full.

I feel alive, fit and active. I have no plans for retirement. My only concession to getting a little older is that I like to have a cat-nap in the afternoon. After that, I can push on through anything.

People in their 70s can still have incredible lives. Health is the most important thing.