158 Getting Older Quotes to Embrace the Beauty in Aging

By Rainne Mendoza

Freelance Copywriter & Author, Coffee & Anime Lover

Published October 31, 2023

Getting older every year is a continuous blessing as revealed in these inspiring and funny getting older quotes from famous personalities all over the world.

What Are The Perks of Getting Older?

A lot of us worry about getting older because we equate aging to physical limitations which slows down our ability to accomplish more as compared to what we were able to do in half the time when we were younger, energetic, and driven.

But there’s more to aging than mere physical deterioration.

Getting older can also mean gaining wisdom, achieving contentment, and having the ability to understand, accept, and be happy with what we have become over time.

Take a look at these enlightening getting older quotes from those who’ve been there and done that.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.

Getting older quotes about the beauty of aging

1. “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” – Satchel Paige

2. “Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” – Luis Bunuel

3. “As I started getting older, I realized, ‘I’m so happy!’ I didn’t expect this! I wasn’t happy when I was young.” – Jane Fonda

4. “Getting older is fine. There is nothing you can do to stop it so you might as well stay on the bus.” – John Byrne

5. “I can honestly say I love getting older. Then again, I never put my glasses on before looking in the mirror.” – Cherie Lunghi

6. “I have a great curiosity to see new things, but not to own them. It’s very peaceful this way, and one of the nice things about getting older.” – Lee Radziwill

7. “I like getting older. When you’re in your 20’s you’re really forging for your future. Things take shape later on.” – Crispin Glover

8. “I love getting older! I really believe that a woman doesn’t reach her peak until her 40s.” – Evangeline Lilly

9. “I think women should start to embrace their age. What’s the alternative to getting older? You die. I can’t change the day I was born. But I can take care of my skin, my body, my mind, and try to live my life and be happy.” – Olivia Munn

10. “Your sixties you 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, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt…” – Billy Crystal

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of curiosity quotes that will inspire you to learn more about the world around you.

Getting older quotes to make you embrace the golden years

11. “I’m just getting older and better.” – Neal Schon

12. “If you’re not getting older, you’re dead.” – Tom Petty

13. “The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.” – Shirley Maclaine

14. “The good thing about getting older is that, as you become less attractive, you have less desire to go out and conquer everyone you see.” – Julian Clary

15. “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” – Madeleine L’Engle

16. “Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age.” – George Sand

17. “Why are people afraid of getting older? You feel wiser. You feel more mature. You feel like you know yourself better. You would trade that for softer skin? Not me!” – Anna Kournikova

18. “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” – George Burns

19. “A man is getting old when he walks around a puddle instead of through it.” – R. C. Ferguson

20. “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

Getting older quotes that will make your day

21. “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” – Henry Ford

22. “As a man grows older it is harder and harder to frighten him.” – Jean Paul Richter

23. “As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.” – Robert Quillen

24. “As we grow older, our capacity for enjoyment shrinks, but not our appetite for it.” – Mignon McLaughlin

25. As we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open.” – Clint Eastwood

26. “As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and the I can’t remember the other two.” – Sir Norman Wisdom

27. “Everything changes as you get older – your mind, your body, the way you view the world.” – Antonio Banderas

28. “Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.” – Walt Disney

29. “Growing old with someone else is beautiful, but growing old while being true to yourself is divine.” – Dodinsky

30. “He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.” – Plato

Getting older quotes to enlighten you

31. “I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun.” – Virginia Woolf

32. “I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.” – T. S. Eliot

33. “If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.” – James A. Garfield

34. “If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.” – Mitch Albom

35. “I’m kind of comfortable with getting older because it’s better than the other option, which is being dead. So, I’ll take getting older.” – George Clooney

36. “Know that you are the perfect age. Each year is special and precious, for you shall only live it once. Be comfortable with growing older.” – Louise Hay

37. “My mother always used to say, ‘The older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana’.” – Betty White

38. “Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideas. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” – Samuel Ullman

39. “Some folks as they grow older grow wise but most folks simply grow stubborner.” – Josh Billings

40. “The great thing about getting older is that you become more mellow. Things aren’t as black and white, and you become much more tolerant. You can see the good in things much more easily rather than getting enraged as you used to do when you were young.” – Maeve Binchy

Getting older quotes to inspire you

41. “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

42. “The older I get, the more open-minded I get, the less judgmental I get.” – Gwyneth Paltrow

43. “The older I get the more things I gotta leave behind, that’s life.” – Sylvester Stallone

44. “The older you get, the stronger the wind gets. And it’s always in your face.” – Jack Nicklaus

45. “There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” – Milan Jundera

46. “It’s a wonderful thing, as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face, when you’ve gotten old, and still sees what you think you look like.” – James Cromwell

47. “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

48. “Wrinkles merely mark where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain

49. “You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.” – Douglas MacArthur

50. “First you are young; then you are middle-aged; then you are old; then you are wonderful.” – Diana Cooper

More getting older quotes and sayings

51. “Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

52. “Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.” – Yoko Ono

53. “Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.” – Mark Twain

54. The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie

55. The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

56. “You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.” – George Burns

57. “When our memories outweigh our dreams, it is then that we become old.” – William J. Clinton

58. “Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.” – Ray Bradbury

59. “Life begins at 40 – but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.” – Helen Rowland

60. “In youth, we run into difficulties. In old age, difficulties run into us.” – Beverly Sills

Getting older quotes about aging gracefully

61. “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” – John Barrymore

62. “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” – Benjamin Franklin

63. “It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.” – Jules Renard

64. “As a white candle/ In a holy place,/ So is the beauty/ Of an aged face.” – Joseph Campbell

65. “Your face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter, suffering and tears. It’s beautiful.” – Lynsay Sands

66. “And the beauty of a woman, with passing years only grows!” – Audrey Hepburn

67. “‘We already are old,’ she said with a sigh. What happens is that you don’t feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.” – Gabriel García Márquez

68. “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” – Ernest Hemingway

69. “I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward.” – May Sarton

70. “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” – Satchel Paige

Getting Older Quotes To Appreciate Life

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

72. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” ― William Shakespeare

73. “That’s another great thing about getting older. Your life is written on your face.” ― Frances McDormand

74. “Please don’t retouch my wrinkles. It took me so long to earn them.” ― Anna Magnani

75. “The great thing about getting older is that you get a chance to tell the people in your life who matter what they mean to you.” ― Mike Love

76. “Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” ― Betty Friedan

77. “Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.” ― Lauren Hutton

78. “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” ― Kitty O’Neill Collins

79. “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!” ― Ingrid Bergman

80. “You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” ― Bob Hope

Getting Older Quotes To Age Gracefully

81. “The more you are getting older, you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage, because of your long experience you can use it.” — Haile Gebrselassie

82. “I never thought getting older would be so great. But when it comes to depression, I have experienced less the older I’ve gotten.” — Amy Grant

83. “One thing I’ve noticed about getting older, it takes twice as much work to get half the results one formerly achieved by falling out of bed.” — Josh Lanyon

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

85. “I’m a person who gets better with practice. Getting older is awesome – because you get more practice.” — Zooey Deschanel

86. “I’m getting older. I’m getting sexier. I’m getting meaner. I can still do what I do.” — Shaquille O’Neal

87. One of the pluses of getting older is you set some limits.” — Nicolas Cage

88. “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” — Andrew Carnegie

89. “I’m getting older, and it happens. You don’t care as much. I don’t care about too much anymore. I’ve got to think about that a little bit.” — Adam Sandler

90. “I’m getting older , so I’m quieting down a bit.” — Steve Coogan

Getting Older Quotes To Maintain a Good Health Life

91. “Getting older is tough. I remember the last time I felt an erection. It was at the movies. The only trouble is, it belonged to the guy sitting next to me.” — Rodney Dangerfield

92. “In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.” — Michael Caine

93. “I’m getting older now, and though I still surf well, it’s hard for me to paddle in big surf.” — Robert Englund

94. “It’s nice, though, getting older and being able to do different roles.” — Luke Wilson

95. “If you’re not going to get any wiser, what’s the point of getting older?” — Elizabeth Lowell

96. “The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be.” — Paul Newman

97. “I think my least healthy habit is running around too much. And I think I’m getting better about it as I’m getting older.” — Cynthia Nixon

98. “The older I grow, the more I find myself alone.” — Alberto Giacometti

99. “I think that women find their strength and power in their sexuality, in their sensuality within, [through] getting older and being secure within that.” — Charlize Theron

100. “Men do not quit playing because they grow old—they grow old because they quit playing.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Getting Older Quotes To Age Gracefully

101. I suppose playing an older man is a way of preparing myself for getting older.” ― Leonardo DiCaprio

102. “It’s horrible getting older. I mean, it’s wonderful because you see the circles of life get completed. But it’s horrible losing your looks.” ― Erica Jong

103. “There’s another part of getting older that’s just wonderful. Which is you see the way the stories turn out with peoples’ lives.” ― Erica Jong

104. “I didn’t mind getting old when I was young. It’s the being old now that’s getting to me.” ― John Scalzi

105. “You know you’re getting old when kids start to dress like you used to and movies are made about your teen life.” ― David Brenner

106. “Twilight is about getting older and relationships – not about a murder mystery. It’s about love when you reach a certain age; nothing is in primary colors.” ― Robert Benton

107. “It’s not easy getting old, you know. Things become a lot less clear.” ― Jonathan Evison

108. “Someone once said that you can make the choice between getting old and getting creepy, and I think getting old is the way to go.” ― Kate Beckinsale

109. “High-level, big-deal publicity has a way of getting old for me, but what never fails to thrill me is when I make personal appearances.” ― Joseph Barbera

110. “As a man gets older, if he knows what is good for him,, the women he likes are getting older too. The trouble is that most of them are married.” ― Ross Macdonald

Funny Getting Older Quotes

111. “Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

112. “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” — Theodore Roosevelt

113. “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” — Ogden Nash

114. “Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” — Larry Lorenzoni

115. “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.”

116. “I’m very pleased to be here. Let’s face it, at my age I’m very pleased to be anywhere.” — George Burns

117. “People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit.” — George Burns

118. “The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you’ll grow out of it.” — Doris Day

119. “By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” — George Burns

120. “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” — Woody Allen

Motivational Getting Older Quotes To Usher you Into the Golden Years

121. “We don’t grow older, we grow riper.” — Pablo Picasso

122. “It’s like you trade the virility of the body for the agility of the spirit.” — Elizabeth Lesser

123. “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” — John Lennon

124. Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

125. “When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day.” — Marty Buccella

126. “Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” — Maggie Kuhn

127. “Those who love deeply never grow old, they may die of old age, but they die young.” — Ben Franklin

128. “To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” — Pearl S. Buck

129. “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” — Franz Kafka

130. “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.” — Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Wisdom and Wit in Getting Older Quotes

131. “Getting older makes you more alive—more vitality, more interest, more intelligence, more grace, more expansion.” — Jamie Lee Curtis

132. “I wouldn’t be young again even if it were possible, but I am not going to pretend that growing old is all sweetness and light.” — Ruth Rendell Young

133. “When I was younger, I was actually looking forward to getting older, to have more insight, more understanding.” — Cate Blanchett

134. “Starting at about, I guess, forever, I’ve always looked forward to getting older. When I was 14, I couldn’t wait to be 16 and get a driver’s license.” — Matthew McConaughey

135. “No, but it’s not because I’m getting older that I’m trying to accelerate. But something very curious is happening: The older I get, the more ideas I’m getting.” — Patrice Leconte

136. “I actually think there’s an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older.” — Jamie Lee Curtis

137. “It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.” — Hunter S. Thompson

138. “Part of what I love about getting older is realizing that there’s something perfect in the imperfection. It’s all very human.” — Patricia Arquette

139. “I’m trying to be good with my skincare now that I’m getting older. I really do think it’s from the inside – so exercise, hydration, sleep, sex.” — Gwyneth Paltrow

140. “I wanted to take on a little bit more of a leadership role. I’m getting older and things are coming to me more and I have to take responsibility for that.” — Chris Bosh

Inspiring Perspectives from Getting Older Quotes

141. “Our souls are getting older and we’re tired of doing things the same old way. We want to find some real solutions.” — Echo Bodine

142. “It really sucks getting older. Sometimes I’ll be walking along and I’ll just glance over my shoulder to make sure nothing has fallen off.” — Karin Slaughter

143. “It’s weird how people hate getting older.” — Dan Deacon

144. “[Getting older is] experience but it’s also changing your mindset.” — Boy George

145. “As I’m getting older, I’m getting funkier. So that’s what I’m wearing. Funky shoes.” — Gavin Friday

146. “Maybe it’s just getting older, but I don’t want to miss things.” — Benedict Cumberbatch

147. “The great thing about getting older is living life.” — Jon Hamm

148. “I’ve never had to deal with ageism – so far – in my career; I have been able to navigate my career and getting older and the roles and opportunities that have come to me.” — Sutton Foster

149. “One of the good things about getting older is you find you’re more interesting than most of the people you meet.” — Lee Marvin

150. “I know I’m getting old because there will be times when I’m not even doing anything and I’ll think, ‘I need to go wipe my ass right now.'” — Louis C. K.

151. “I guess getting older has its benefits, one of them being perspective.” — Ann Dowd

152. “It’s not necessarily getting older or the change that comes with it, I think it’s more about the memories that you have. Where you can look at your life in these eras.” — Billie Joe Armstrong

153. “I feel excited about getting older as an actress, too. I think there are some amazing opportunities around the corner and I don’t need to hold on to myself or who I was when I was 25.” — Sutton Foster

154. “As I’m getting older, I’m moving away from calculations and measurement. I’m trying to be more open to vulnerability and mistakes.” — Micah Lexier

155. “You can’t help getting older, but you can help yourself from becoming old and infirm, in mind as well as body.” — Joan Collins

156. “I have a pretty fancy facialist, this woman Dale Breault. Getting older, it’s a good thing to have a serious facialist.” — Natasha Lyonne

157. “You know you’re getting older when you don’t care where your wife goes, just so you don’t have to go along.” — Jacob Braude

158. “Be happy when you don’t notice that you’re getting old, it means you have had a great life so far.” — Julia Serano

Which of these getting older quotes resonated with you best?

These enlightening getting older quotes should inspire you to embrace your body and mind as they age with grace like fine wine over the years.

Getting older is a gift which means you have lived longer and can now enjoy the view as you take the back seat, watching and guiding the younger, more agile ones continue the rest of what you and your generation have started back when youth and time were on your side.

Remember, getting older is not promised and not everyone gets to celebrate their birthdays every year.

So, embrace your wrinkles, age lines and spots on your face, including those gray hair that suddenly popped out of nowhere, live it up in the nursing home, and celebrate your life.