A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter… — Shi Nai'An · Skopia

← Back to quotes

A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter the government service after the age of forty; should not have any more children after the age of fifty; and should not travel after the age of sixty. This is because the proper time for those things has passed.

1524

★ 1.9

Other tags relating to this quote

Topic

Stages of life Opportune time Timing

Time

Person

Provenance

Current citation

Shi Naian. The Water Margin, translated by J. H. Jackson. Tuttle Publishing, 2010, forward.

Original citation

Shi Nai'an. Water Margin. c. 1524, vol. 1, introduction.

Related quotes

Other quotes that share a subject, a time, or a voice with this one.

You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot.

Publilius Syrus

Sententiae · 43 BC

Another quote aboutTopic·Opportune time

When the Sunne shineth make hay.

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

Another quote aboutTopic·Opportune time

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?

City Slickers · 1991

Another quote aboutTopic·Stages of life

At fifteen my mind was set on learning. At thirty my character had been formed. At forty I had no more perplexities. At fifty I knew the Mandate of Heaven. At sixty I was at ease with whatever I heard. At seventy I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing moral principles.

Analects · 221 BC

Another quote aboutTopic·Stages of life