In light of Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race over widespread concerns about his age and mental fitness, The Point has assembled a panel of experts to weigh in.
No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year.
– Cicero, De Senectute
Old men are always young enough to learn.
– Aeschylus, the Oresteia
This increase in the life span and in the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacity—and the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned.
– John F. Kennedy, message to the Congress on the needs of senior citizens
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
– John Kenneth Galbraith, speech to John F. Kennedy
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
– John Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain
Old age is an incurable disease.
– Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CVIII
The first symptom is that hair grows on your ears. It’s very disconcerting.
– Edward G. Robinson, All My Yesterdays: An Autobiography
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man.
– Leviticus 19:32
An old goat is never the more reverend for his beard.
– Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward; not an hour more nor less,
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
—William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, scene 7
When you try to conceal your wrinkles … with paste made from beans, you deceive yourself, not me. Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised. A fault concealed is presumed to be great.
—Martial, Epigrams, Book III, Epistle 42
He’s almost eighty and no one in their eighties is gonna have a perfectly smooth forehead. Not without some intervention. My biggest issue with Joe Biden Botox is it’s pretty obvious.
– Plastic surgeon Dr. Anil Shah, on Biden’s appearance
Will you shut up, man?
– President Joseph R. Biden
In light of Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race over widespread concerns about his age and mental fitness, The Point has assembled a panel of experts to weigh in.
If you liked this essay, you’ll love reading The Point in print.