All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

Shakespeare: As You Like It.

Age cannot wither her.

Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra.

Why grieve that Time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on?

As idly should I weep at noon

To see the blush of morning gone.

Bryant.

An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful Day benevolence endears,
Whose Night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favorite as the general friend:
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?

Dr. Johnson.

'Tis the sunset of life gives us mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before. Campbell: Pleasures of Hope.

Years following years, steal something every day;
At last they steal us from ourselves away.

Pope.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long,
Even wondered at because he dropt no sooner;
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years;

Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more,
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Dryden: Edipus.

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Edmund Waller.

-I left him in a green old age,

And looking like the oak, worn, but still steady
Amidst the elements, whilst younger trees

Fell fast around him.

Byron: Werner.

Yet time, who changes all, had altered him
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb:
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Byron: Childe Harold.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.

Byron: Childe Harold.

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.

Longfellow: Morituri Salutamus.

Ambition, Glory; see Fame and Power.

The true ambition there alone resides,
Where justice vindicates, and wisdom guides;
Where inward dignity joins outward state,
Our purpose good, as our achievement great;
Where public blessings, public praise attend,
Where glory is our motive, not our end:

Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in
view,

Brave men would act, though scandal would ensue.

Young: Love of Fame.

The same ambition can destroy or save,

And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.

Pope: Essay on Man.

Fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Shakespeare: Henry VIII.

"To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven."

Milton: Paradise Lost.

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Pope: Essay on Man.

Dream after dream ensues,

And still they dream that they shall still succeed,

And still are disappointed.

Cowper: Task.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

Byron: Childe Harold.

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

Shakespeare: Macbeth.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

Scott: Old Mortality.

Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name.

Anger; see Passion.

William Winter: Queen's Domain.

Rage is the shortest passion of our souls:

Like narrow brooks, that rise with sudden show'rs,

It swells in haste, and falls again as soon.

Rowe: Fair Penitent.

Anger is like

A full-hot horse; who being allow'd his way,
Self-mettle tires him.

Shakespeare: Henry VIII.

Never anger made good guard for itself.

Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra.

Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.

Shakespeare: Coriolanus.

When anger rushes unrestrain'd to action,
Like a hot steed it stumbles in its way:

The man of thought strikes deepest, and strikes

I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.

Shakespeare: Macbeth.

Such a noise arose

As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
As loud and to as many tunes.

Shakespeare: Henry VIII.

Oh popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

Cowper: Task.