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At thirty, Man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At… — Edward Young

Poem

At thirty, Man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

Edward Young
Night Thoughts · 1742
★ 3.5
Other tags relating to this quote
Topic
Changing oneselfStages of life
Medium
Poem
Time
1742
Person
Edward Young
Provenance
Current citation
Young, Edward. Edward Young: Night Thoughts, edited by Stephen Cornford. Cambridge University Press, 2008, Night 1, I. 417.
Original citation
Young, Edward. The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality. London: R. Dodsley, 1742, Night 1, I. 417.

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Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so fast. When you're a teenager, you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Your forties, you grow a little pot belly you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery. Your sixties you'll have a major surgery, the music is still loud but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two o'clock in the afternoon, you have lunch around ten, breakfast the night before, you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, "how come the kids don't call? How come the kids don't call?" The eighties, you'll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand but who you call mama. Any questions?

Mitch Robbins
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