• Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.
• Youth is full of pleasance; age is full of care.
• Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
• Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
• Youth is full of sport; age's breath is short.
• Youth is nimble; age is lame.
• Youth is hot and bold; age is weak and cold
• Youth is wild, and age is tame.
• Age, I do abhor thee. Youth, I do adore thee!
• O, my love, my love is young!
• Age, I do defy thee.

Whatever prejudice the foolish and sensual conceive of old age, it is the academy of wisdom, the diadem [crown] of life, the porch of immortality.

Youth is composed of vanity and frenzy: weak in judgement, yet impatient of counsel; obnoxious to censure, yet incapable of reproof; studious of subtle arts before solid knowledge; greedy rather of eloquence than wisdom; busied with circular imaginations; prostitute to pleasure. Justice it measures by power, and resolves that whatsoever it can do, it may. Its bounty consists in profuseness, rather casting away, than conferring benefits. Even its valor is more furious than resolute, so that it charges boldly, but is lost in retreats. Indeed, what true virtue can it have, that knows no moderation? Young men may well be prompt and acute, for, by reason of the heat and moisture wherein they abound, imagination is strong in them. And in memory they most excel. Whereby, they have means to supply their own imperfections, with foreign knowledge. But their experience is so narrow, and their reason so unfixed, that they cannot yet arrive at wisdom and constancy, the fruits and effects of maturer age.

Old men, perhaps, may be irresolute and so forfeit those opportunities of great actions and events which younger men would probably have improved. And this chiefly appears in the profession of arms, where, in regard fortune presides, bold and vigorous attempts are commonly favored, and caution may be as prejudicial as rashness. Wherefore, the politicians, indeed, prefer the chivalry of young commanders, assisted by ancient counsellors, before the prudence of old captains, though seconded by youthful officers. Yet let not youth too much triumph in this shadow of advantage. For even such gaiety proceeds, for the most part, from want of foresight and ignorance of dangers, whereas the omissions of old age are but the effects of deep providence, and various experience, endeavoring to reduce all things to reason or rule, and disdaining to leave ought to the blindness of mere chance. However, admit this to be a defect essential to old age, yet it is supplied with many excellent virtues, which not only rescue it from contempt, but render even its imperfections venerable. It is, indeed, that recollected estate of true wisdom wherein commonly we begin to live, and from whence we may reasonably date the time of our being, as Charles the Fifth was wont to reckon his age only from the day of his retreat. It is a seasonable interval of perfect leisure, wherein the soul, being no longer biased and diverted with present amusements, seriously reflects upon things past, and diligently prepares herself for things to come. Till then, she was wholly laid aside. The body kept her, as it were, under hatches, and she lived but like slender coals raked up in vast embers. Now, being delivered from her bondage, she [the soul] appears in equipage, like worthy citizens recalled from banishment to be invested with supreme authority. We [the old] now begin to value others and ourselves not by sleight appearances, but by such intrinsic habits as are only valuable. We have now learned to retire to the sanctuary within us, neither expecting good nor fearing evil from any creature but ourselves. We now decline those airy speculations which are, indeed, but the itch of the mind. And paring off the excrescences of unfruitful knowledge, reduce all our theory into practice. What further can be added to the just merits of old age, whose actions are uniform, and its passions regular; whose virtues are perfect and even its errors secure? It understands clearly, distinguishes rightly, concludes, as it were, infallibly, and, (which crowns all) lives conformably.

Such indeed is old age, in upright and regenerate souls. But … an old sinner becomes incorrigible. His vices are manners and his evil customs, nature. He sins untempted, like evil angels, and retains a will even beyond the power or lust of offending. He needs no other mixture or change of elements, for he is already a clod of the impurest earth, rotten and sordid, beyond the stench of sepulchres, or putrefaction of worms.