Old age
idea · 7 works · 7 mentions · 7 anchored passages
old age · Old Age · decay · frailties of old age · my old age · problems of human life · the threshold of old age · years
in the texts
Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero
The condition of aging as a philosophical problem addressed by Cicero in his treatise De Senectute.
From these works have been selected the two treatises, on Old Age and on Friendship, which have proved of most permanent and widespread interest to posterity, and which give a clear impression of the way in which a high-minded Roman thought about some of the main problems of human life.
To Alexander
The condition against which Isocrates defends his continued intelligence and competence.
Since I am writing to your father I thought I should be acting in a strange manner if, when you are in the same region as he, I should fail either to address you or to send you a greeting, or to write you something calculated to convince any reader that I am now not out of my mind through old age and that I do not babble like a fool, but that, on the contrary, the share of intelligence that still …
To Philip, II
The speaker's advanced age, limiting his physical presence but enabling him to witness partial fulfillment of earlier hopes.
If I possessed the same vigor which I formerly had and were not utterly spent with years, I should not be speaking with you by letter, but in your presence should myself be spurring and summoning you to undertake these tasks.
I am grateful to my old age for this reason alone, because it has prolonged my life to this moment, so that the dreams of my youth, which I attempted to commit to writing both in my Panegyricus and in the discourse which was sent to you, I am now seeing in part already coming to fulfillment through your achievements and in part I have hopes of their future realization.
Barlaam and Josaphat
The gradual decline of the body with age, presented as a precursor to death.
and, bringing the man near, he inquired to learn the strangeness of the sight.
Republic
The stage of life discussed extensively by Socrates and Cephalus, its burdens and its consolations.
As soon as he saw me Cephalus greeted me and said, You are not a very frequent visitor, Socrates.
May I ask, Cephalus, said I, whether you inherited most of your possessions or acquired them yourself?
And I was filled with admiration for the man by these words, and desirous of hearing more I tried to draw him out and said, I fancy, Cephalus, that most people, when they hear you talk in this way, are not convinced but think that you bear old age lightly not because of your character but because of your wealth.
Letters to Lucilius
The condition of advancing age, first registered with dismay through external signs, then re-evaluated as a stage with its own pleasures.
"It is plain," I said, "that these plane-trees are neglected;
5. What is most pleasant in every pleasure it puts off to its very end. The most delightful season of life is the one now on the decline, but not yet on the brink. And even that age which stands upon the last tile, I judge, has its own pleasures—or this very thing takes the place of pleasures, the needing of none.
1. Wherever I turn, I see the proofs of my old age. I had come to my place in the suburbs and was complaining of the expense of the building, which was falling to ruin. The steward told me it was no fault of his own neglect—he was doing everything—but the house was old. This house grew up under my own hands; what is to become of me, if stones of my own age are so crumbling?
Apology
The decline and distress Socrates expects to avoid by dying at the right time.
for he escaped the hardest part of life and met the easiest sort of death.
If I perceive my decay and take to complaining, how, he had continued, could I any longer take pleasure in life?
For if I had achieved this end, it is clear that instead of now passing out of life, I should merely have provided for dying in the throes of illness or vexed by old age, the sink into which all distresses flow, unrelieved by any joy.