A Quote by Ernest Hemingway

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

Ernest Hemingway

Quote Topics

Careful Fallacy Great Grow Men Old Old Men Wisdom Wise

Quote Author

Ernest Hemingway
American - Novelist
July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961

Wise men never grow up; indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.

John Buchan

I would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise; and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The great majority of men grow up and grow old in seeming and following.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...that though they may refuse to grow wise, they must inevitably grow old; ...that the proper solaces of age are not music and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and that it is therefore in their interest to retire while there yet remain a few hours of nobler employments.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness.

John Campbell Shairp

It's a critical fallacy of our times ... that a writer should 'grow,' 'change,' or 'develop.' This fallacy causes us to expect from children or radishes: 'grow,' or there's something wrong with you. But writers are not radishes. If you look at what most writers actually do, it resembles a theme with variations more than it does the popular notion of growth.

Margaret Atwood

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise - even in their own field.

Isaac Asimov

[D]on't grow old. With age comes caution, which is another name for cowardice.... Whatever else you do in life, don't cultivate a conscience. Without a conscience a man may never be said to grow old. This is an age of very old young men.

Hesketh Pearson

Some folks as they grow older grow wise but most folks simply grow stubborner.

Josh Billings

It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.

William Hazlitt

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.

Herman Melville

The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.

William Lyon Phelps

The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.

William Lyon Phelps

The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow To Be old friends?