“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent—that is to triumph over old age.”

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Ponkapog Papers (1903), "Leaves from a Note-Book"

About Thomas Bailey Aldrich

1836 – 1907

American poet and editor, author of "Ponkapog Papers".

“All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass.”

“We weep when we are born, not when we die!”

“Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring.”

“There is an old age which has more youth of heart than youth itself.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.”

“Age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress.”

“When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”

“Old age has its pleasures, which though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.”