Over many years I have collected thousands of quotations on countless themes. In light of the current national discussion about aging as Joe Biden runs again for president as the oldest chief executive in our nation’s history, I thought it worthwhile to share a few thoughts about getting older that have been left to us by writers, artists, philosophers and commentators over the centuries. Hopefully, these can remind us about the positives that come with aging. For those who think that Joe Biden is too old to be president (I don’t – see below), I suggest sending them this list to offer a wider perspective about what, hopefully, will be the destiny of us all, to age gracefully, with dignity and with our intellectual wits and moral compass largely intact.

First, however, I want to say a few words about the negative attitude of many younger people about Biden’s decision to seek a second term. Some 80 year-olds are, indeed, wise to retire and commence the last period of their lives with family and friends, doing whatever they choose that is productive, relevant, creative and meaningful for them. Others who have the wherewithal still, who have their wits and are wise based on a lifetime of experience and learning, who want to continue to work and contribute and are able to do so physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, they should be encouraged to do so without the second-guessing of younger people who presume that aging means broad-based diminished capacities for everyone over a certain age, whatever that age may be.

Traditional religions revere the elderly for their life-experience and wisdom. Unfortunately, in our western youth-oriented culture, too many people who aren’t yet seniors themselves and don’t fully understand what seniors are able and not able to do assume that anyone older than 65, 70, 75, or 80 automatically can’t measure up to what is required. Though some aspects of our lives are indeed diminished when we age, there are other strengths that make up for what is over and gone. Every older person has to make the decision for him/herself about what they are able and willing to do, and though some professions, businesses and organizations make that decision for them based on quantifiable and justifiable standards, especially when the health and well-being of others are directly affected, many occupations ought to remain open to those who still have capacity and a proven recent track-record of accomplishment.

Joe Biden is one of those who still has the capacity to lead the nation and free world (see my last blog post “Let’s Stop the Bed-Wetting!” – Feb 12) and the op-ed I included there by Dr. Haran Ranganath “Biden Seems Forgetful, but That Doesn’t Mean He is ‘Forgetting'” (NYT – Feb. 12).

I mentioned in that blog that Biden “appears” old due to his arthritic back problems, a life-time of compensating for a stutter, and a quieter and slower speaking style. Those who know him believe he is focused and fully in command of the facts and policies on multiple issues facing this country and world. The NYT’s Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman said this week on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber that he spent an hour with Biden recently and he detected no diminished intellectual capacity whatsoever, a view that even former Republican MAGA Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy acknowledged privately. Biden’s advisors concur with both Krugman’s and McCarthy’s observations. The DC media bubble and even Jon Stewart in his offensive – IMO – attack on Biden on his maiden re-voyage of The Daily Show on Monday night are having a field day since Special Counsel Robert Hur’s gratuitous, unprofessional and unqualified attack on President Biden’s mental acuity.

I agree with many political pundits who say that it’s high time for Biden to appear everywhere, before the press, on late-night television, etc. and show the country that he still has what it takes to be president. Hopefully, the State of the Union will begin to put to rest the public perception about his mental capacities and the two old guys running for president can be evaluated on the basis of policy differences, competency, decency, morality, mental health, what is good for American democracy and the vast majority of the American people, and for a stable world order led by the United States.

Rob Reiner put it far more succinctly than I did above when he said: “Here’s the truth. Biden is old. But he is a decent moral person who is incredibly effective at governing. Trump is old. But he’s a pathologically lying criminal who is incapable of governing and will destroy American Democracy.”

Here is some food for thought on aging over the centuries:

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” -Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

“No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.” -Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

“Today we are wasting resources of incalculable value: the accumulated knowledge, the mature wisdom, the seasoned experience, the skilled capacities, the productivity of a great and growing number of our people—our senior citizens.” -John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” -Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825)

“The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in his hand was simply this, that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.” -Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

“One who greets an elder is as though he has greeted the face of the Shechinah” (the feminine divine presence of God). -Genesis Rabbah 63.6 (300-500 CE)

“In the aged is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.” –Job 12:12 (between the 7^th and 3^rd centuries BCE)

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The art of fresco was not work for old me…one paints with the brain and not with the hands.” -Michelangelo (1475-1564)

“All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things: at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage: and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot on a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, once Hokusai, today Gwakio Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.” -Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)

“What is old age? A sense of isolation, a feeling of holy rage, developing into what I have called transcendental pessimism: a mistrust of reason, a belief in instinct. … the feeling that the crimes and follies of mankind must be accepted with resignation… a retreat from realism, an impatience with established technique and a craving for complete unity of treatment, as if the picture were an organism in which every member shared in the life of the whole.” -Kenneth Clark (1903-1983)

“The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.” -W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

“No human loves life like the one that’s growing old.” -Sophocles (497/496-406/405 BCE)

“Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.” -Robert Browning (1812-1889)

“When we’re young we have faith in what is seen, but when we’re old we know that what is seen is traced in air and built on water.” -Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959)

“There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.” -Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

“For age is opportunity no less / Than youth itself, though in another dress. / And as the evening twilight fades away / The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

“Age is never so old as youth would measure it.” -Jack London (1876-1916)

“The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not a stumbling block.” -Andre Maurois (1885-1967)

“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the old; seek what they sought.” -Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age.” -Sophia Loren (1934- )

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)