Character and Conduct – 27 December – Growing Old

TO GROW old is more difficult than to die, because to renounce a good once and for all, costs less than to renew the sacrifice day by day and in detail.   To bear with one’s own decay, to accept one’s own lessening capacity, is a harder and rarer virtue than to face death.   There is a halo round tragic and premature death;  there is but a long sadness in declining strength.   But look closer: so studied, a resigned and religious old age will often move us more than the heroic ardour of young years.   The maturity of the soul is worth more than the first brilliance of its faculties, or the plenitude of its strength, and the eternal in us can but profit from all the ravages made by time.   There is comfort in this thought.

Amiel’s Journal

TO KNOW how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

Amiel’s Journal

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here is that readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.