I like my buddies from west Texas. I liked them when I was young; I liked them when I was middle-age; I liked them before I was President; and I like them during President; and I like them after President.
O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.
Every one of course represents the spirit of his age, but there is an eternal aspect of the Spirit of every age which may be caught. To recreate the past from the mutilated fragments of the present is the task of the Historian.
In this day of wonders no one will say that a thing or an idea is worthless because it is new. To say it is impossible because it is difficult is again not in consonance with the spirit of the age. Things undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever becoming possible.
I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. So at this wonderful, young age of 65, I don't know yet what the Lord has for me to do. I try to live up to the energy and to the calling, but I wouldn't dare say I have even scratched the surface yet.
Man is guided by the stomach. He walks and the stomach goes first and the head afterwards. Have you not seen that? It will take ages for the head to go first.
I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present? If he reach the age of forty or fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect.
It is time for thee to be gone, lest the age more decent in its wantonness should laugh at thee and drive thee of the stage.
[Lat., Tempus abire tibi est, ne . . .
Rideat et pulset lasciva decentius aetas.]
If a man lives to any considerable age, it can not be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.