Jules Renard Quotes

I think it's nice to age gracefully. OK, you lose the youth, a certain stamina and dewy glow, but what you gain on the inside as a human being is wonderful: the wisdom, the acceptance and the peace of mind. It's a fair exchange.

What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable.

As you get older you learn some balance and mediation in your life - that's where I am right now. I feel pretty comfortable about things.

I see a wiser person than when I was younger: having babies, and passing 30, were the turning points. What women in their 40s - I am 39 - lack in gorgeousness, they make up for in wisdom. I love ageing, despite the drawbacks - thinner, drier skin.

Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.

The advantage of age is that you swap youth for wisdom. You're so full of insecurities when you're young. 'Who am I? What do I have to do for people to like me?' You get caught up in things. You get very emotional about things.

The wiser you get, the more experience you have, and the more you see people for who they are as human beings, as opposed to figures you have to fight against.

The longer you live, the smarter you get because you've been around. You've seen things. You've gone through different emotional experiences in your own life, and hopefully, you understand things better. And that makes you a better actress.

There's a confidence and sense of self that comes with age that I didn't anticipate.

The worst thing about age is not quite being able to do what you once did. The best thing is learning to accept what you've got and what you are.

I love being in my 40s.

I have learned a lot over the years. I have learned how best to use my attributes. That comes with a bit of knowledge and a bit of wisdom.

I've got so much wisdom and have lived through so much life that I feel more powerful than I ever have.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause men like women who got some sense.

To me, with age, everything has gotten better. You have way more control; you know yourself better.

As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

... the more you know about life, the more you get out of it.

I was a long time learning that wisdom and experience are things apart; that to taste life is not to be confused with understanding what life is really all about.

You become more and more charged with your life and with a life that you're observing. When I was younger, I was actually looking forward to getting older, to have more insight, more understanding. I'm much more tolerant with others and with myself. I'm not in rebellion all the time, I'm not angry so much. But all those feelings are really useful [when you're young] because they fire us, as long as they don't get out of control.

You solve it as you get older, when you reach the point where you've tasted so much that you can somehow sacrifice certain things more easily, and you have a more tolerant view of things like possessiveness (your own) and a broader acceptance of the pains and the losses.

I just think that things get easier as you get older and wiser and more experienced. You get more confident about who you are as you get older. I find that really comforting.

When you get to be a 45-year-old man, you start to realize: 'I know who I am, and I know who I'm not. I know my shortcomings, I know my strengths; maybe some of my shortcomings are my strengths.' You start to face yourself as you truly are.

Along with age comes more confidence, so it kind of works out.

Now I am older, I understand we have to accept who we are.