Let’s face it, everyone has an opinion about retirement (good idea? bad idea? financially viable—or not–idea?), and that includes the famous as well as not-so-famous. The words may not apply to you, but they’re certainly food for thought (or at least conversational fodder for cocktail parties)—bits of wisdom, wistfulness and, thankfully, wit that have been collected in anthologies over the years. These are among our favorites:
“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save”—Will Rogers
“The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income”—George Foreman
“When one door closes, another one opens, but we often look so long and regretfully at the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us”—Alexander Graham Bell
“Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering—and it’s all over much too soon”—Woody Allen (in “Annie Hall”)
“To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am”—Bernard Baruch
“One of the many pleasures of old age is giving things up”—Malcolm Muggeridge
“There’s one thing I always wanted to do before I quit . . .retire”—Groucho Marx
“I don’t feel 80. In fact I don’t feel anything until noon”—Bob Hope
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter”—e.e. Cummings
“Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren’t going to get rid of me that way”—Bette White
“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul”—Douglas MacArthur