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I have lived to see that being seventeen is no protection against becoming seventy, but to know this needs the experience of a lifetime, for no imagination copes with it.
Lord Dunsany
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Age is a gradual process, and wisdom comes from experience over a lifetime.

This quote reflects on the inevitability of aging and the understanding that comes with it. Lord Dunsany articulates the valuable lesson that youth does not shield one from the realities of growing older, and this understanding can only be grasped through the experiences collected throughout life. It emphasizes the complexity of aging and how no amount of youthful imagination can truly prepare one for the depth of this experience.

Themes

AgeExperienceWisdomLifeGrowing Up

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a graduation speech to remind students that life experiences shape their future.

More from Lord Dunsany

Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here.
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And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happening that are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us, over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten hills.
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And at that moment a wind came out of the northwest, and entered the woods and bared the golden branches, and danced over the downs, and led a company of scarlet and golden leaves, that had dreaded this day but danced now it had come; and away with a riot of dancing and glory of colour, high in the light of the sun that had set from the sight of the fields, went wind and leaves together.
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I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full.
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A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.
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Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.
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A little wisdom, now and then

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