Top 51 Ageism Quotes & Sayings

I have experienced ageism and sexism. In my 20s, I was told by a camera lighting man I needed plastic surgery. In my 30s I was constantly told I needed to lose weight.

I think that ageism is a cultural illness; it's not a personal illness.

It's just something that I like, and I also don't buy into the ageism theory.

I think the BBC likes to have Mary Berry and me around to rebut the charge of ageism.

In the music world, ageism is a big issue. It's about youth and youth culture. There's no other art form that I know that requires you to be a certain age.

For artists of my caliber, we're not played on the radio, so we don't really get a chance to get involved in that debate at all. We don't get a chance, because this weird kind of ageism exists in pop music. If you're past a certain age, you're not relevant. That's the kind of cliched term.

Honestly, what is ageism really, you know? If you take care of yourself and you feel good then that's really all that matters at the end of the day.

So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

As a young woman working in journalism, I assumed harassment and discrimination came with the territory and that you just had to get on with the job. As I rose to senior positions, it took me awhile to realise that just because I'd survived relatively unscathed didn't mean the younger women joining the profession would do so, and it isn't until you hit a certain age that the reality of ageism - which is much more acute for women - kicks in.

Age-based retirement arbitrarily severs productive persons from their livelihood, squanders their talents, scars their health, strains an already overburdened Social Security system, and drives many elderly people into poverty and despair. Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.

What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!"

All my life, I faced sexism and racism and then, when I hit 40, ageism.

Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.

We've made so many advances in other areas - civil rights, gay rights - but ageism is still an area that's taboo and not talked about and dealt with.

Not only do we suffer from racism and sexism, but we also suffer from ageism. And that is that once you reach a certain age, you're not allowed to be adventurous, you're not allowed to be sexual and I think that's rather hideous. [...] I mean, is there a rule? Are you just supposed to die when you're 40?

I think as more women see that there are women out there building vibrant and creative and powerful lives and careers in their 40s, 50s, etc., then these older views of ageism will fall away.

Didn't Lionel Richie just make a country album? No one is giving him a hard time... and God bless him - I love Lionel and should be able to do what he wants to do, like Madonna should, too. Both are having success and I applaud them. If you don't like it, don't buy it. The ageism criticism is getting old.

This phenomenon with Betty White is so wonderfully amazing. In a world where ageism runs rampant, out of left field, all of a sudden, the country decides to celebrate Betty White, and she becomes cool at 90. That's remarkable.

The beautiful thing is that ageism just doesn't exist on 'EastEnders.' The show saved me.

Don't do this ageism thing in Hip Hop. Don't be an OG and tell me these young, rich cats ain't doing it right. Don't tell me that, man.

"Ageism" or whatever you want to call it, is a very English phenomenon. You don't get it too much in many other cultures. And no one says it about authors or poets or filmmakers. "Oh, they're too old to make films or write books." You know what I mean?

Brexit and Trump are a generational revenge. This may partly be against millennial certainty and superiority, and, indeed, ageism; and it may be a natural part of population dynamics - not only are more people getting far older than ever before, but they are older for longer than they are young.

Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.

All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I'm bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I've read - everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody's racism or sexism or ageism.

Ageism is something that does exist.

I'm anti-ageism in the arts.

Avoid internalizing society's sexism, racism, ageism - pick an ism, any ism.

French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.

We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.

Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time' has been targeted by censors for promoting New Ageism, and Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' for promoting racism. Gee, where does that leave the kids?

There's ageism in everything. I don't give a hoot. It isn't what other people think; it's what you think. But it's hard to come to terms with getting older. I admire people like Vivienne Westwood.

'Ageism,' or whatever you want to call it, is a very English phenomenon. You don't get it too much in many other cultures. And no one says it about authors or poets or filmmakers. 'Oh, they're too old to make films or write books.'

Is New Ageism inherently fascist? Of course not, though I'm happy to pronounce its babble about chakras and cosmic energy errant quackery.

Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms.

We know longer live in a homogenous society, it is not black, white, Asian or Latin, it is a melting pot. Until we learn to assimilate and learn about other cultures, we will continue to have racism problems. Of course, there are other '-isms' as our ills. We have sexism, ageism, elitism, homophobia-ism, there are many -isms we have to overcome.

Now that I've experienced ageism, I don't regard it as a bad thing. It's been a transition to something more exciting and maybe edgier.

Too old at 72? Careful. Ageism is out. We'll have the law on you!

There's racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. But bad news is not news. We've had bad news as a species for a long time. We've had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure.

It is important for the film industry to rise above ageism.

I do feel that the trend is away from ageism and toward a recognition that older people have a unique voice.

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.

There's more than just racism. There's ageism and sexism as well.

It's getting better but men still earn more and there are more jobs for them. Ageism is a big thing. Parts for women disappear as you get older.

Ageism is the racism of the gay world. We really believe that age-and all of our fears that it carries-will "rub off" on us, the way that racists once believed blackness would.

As I plotted 'Blueprints,' I realized that ageism against women is most obvious in the field of entertainment - and that I needed a TV show in my book.

All the many brands of suppression - racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism - are historical; they have not been always with us. It was not ever thus. And it's not going to be this way, come the revolution!

Ageism is interesting for me because I've been playing someone in my 40s since I was 20 or so, but I have experienced it. I've been lucky in that I haven't had to play the ingenue and feel that slip away.

There is no ageism or 'youthism' when it comes to freedom of speech. We are all citizens.

Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.

I hate to generalize, but in general, both men and women suffer from ageism. Men much less because men gain power as they get older. Women lose power as they get older. Men are seen as gaining experience and being distinguished. Sons look forward to replacing their fathers.

I am concerned about ageism and the loss of beauty - the perception that as you grow older, you 'lose your looks,' which I think is diabolical.