If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.
Interpretation
Engaging with joyful older individuals can provide perspective and inspire a fulfilling life.
This quote highlights the importance of surrounding oneself with positive influences, particularly those who have lived longer and can share their experiences. By associating with older individuals who embrace life, we can learn valuable lessons about longevity, enjoyment, and the potential for a rich, meaningful existence, rather than isolating ourselves away from life's joys as we age.
In practice
In a motivational talk about aging gracefully, I cited this quote to emphasize the value of wisdom from older generations.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
I was born to make mistakes, not to fake perfection
Knowledge has value only insofar as it contributes to the all-round development of the whole nature of man.
I don't have no story. Everybody wants this Hollywood story, but the world don't owe you nothing, man. It's what you owe the world.
A timid dog barks more violently than it bites. Curtius Canis timidus vehementius latrat quam mordet
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
When workmen strive to do better than well, they do confound their skill in covetousness.
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