Fat, fair, and forty. [ Sir Walter Scott ]

Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years. [ Sir Thomas Browne ]

Every man is a fool or a physician at forty. [ Proverb ]

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.
At fifty, chides his infamous delay.
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve.
Resolves - and re-resolves; then dies the same. [ Young ]

Be wise with speed;A fool at forty is a fool indeed. [ Edward Young ]

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. [ Victor Hugo ]

Soldiers! from yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you. [ Napoleon I ]

From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on us. [ Napoleon to his troops in Egypt ]

Learn to hold thy tongue. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks silence. [ Fuller ]

I have not wept these forty years; but now my mother comes afresh into my eyes. [ Dryden ]

At fifteen, to dance is a pleasure; at twenty five, a pretext; at forty, a fatigue. [ A. Ricard ]

At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment. [ Grattan ]

At eighteen, one adores at once; at twenty, one loves; at thirty, one desires; at forty, one reflects. [ P. de Kock ]

He that at twenty is not, at thirty knows not, and at forty has not, will never either be, or know, or have. [ Italian Proverb ]

A woman, when she has passed forty, becomes an illegible scrawl; only an old woman is capable of divining old women. [ Balzac ]

He that is not handsome at twenty, strong at thirty, wise at forty, rich at fifty, will never be handsome, strong, wise, or rich. [ Proverb ]

I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five and twenty. [ Dryden ]

There are forty men of wit for one of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of ready change. [ Unknown ]

When women have passed thirty, the first thing they forget is their age; when they have attained forty, they have entirely lost the remembrance of it. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]

Never build after you are five and forty; have five years' income in hand before you lay a brick; and always calculate the expense at double the estimate. [ Kett ]

Every age has its different inclinations, but man is always the same. At ten, he is led by sweetmeats, at twenty by a mistress, at thirty by pleasure, at forty by ambition, at fifty by avarice. [ J. J. Rousseau ]

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half as useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense. And he that will carry nothing about him but gold will be every day at a loss for readier change. [ Pope ]

I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. [ Chesterfield ]

We have no permanent habits until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up - and that is one of the main things. I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity. It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]