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 ]

Reckon right, and February hath one and thirty days. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

I was for Ovid at fifteen, but I am for Horace at thirty. [ Ducerceau ]

A girl of sixteen accepts love; a woman of thirty incites it. [ A. Ricard ]

A man as he manages himself may die old at thirty and a child at eighty. [ Proverb ]

Civil wars of France made a million of atheists, and thirty thousand witches. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

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

America has begun her career at the culminating point of life, as Adam did at the age of thirty. [ Mme. Swetchine ]

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

No man is ever good for much who has not been carried off his feet by enthusiasm between twenty and thirty. [ Froude ]

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 ]

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date. [ Colton ]

He who loves not books before he comes to thirty years of age will hardly love them enough afterward to understand them. [ Earl of Clarendon ]

Never trust a woman who wears mauve or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It means they have a history. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]

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 ]

Truth, like the Venus de Medici, will pass down in thirty fragments to posterity; but posterity will collect and recompose them into a goddess. [ Richter ]

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 ]

Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep under ashes lie life, youth, the careless sports, the pleasures and passions, the darling joy. [ William M. Thackeray ]

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 ]

Sow the seeds of life - humbleness, pure-heartedness, love; and in the long eternity which lies before the soul, every minutest grain will come up again with an increase of thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. [ F. W. Robertson ]

With a pretty face and the freshness of twenty, a woman, however shallow she may be, makes many conquests, but does not retain them: with cleverness, thirty years, and a little beauty, a woman makes fewer conquests but more durable ones. [ A. Dupuy ]

One is more honest in youth, and to the age of thirty years, than when one has passed it. It is only after that age that one's illusions are dispelled. Until then, one resembles the dog that defends the dinner of his master against other dogs: after this period, he takes his share of it with the others. [ Chamfort ]

It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul; it takes but an instant to kill him. [ Voltaire ]

In the matter of diet - which is another main thing - I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn't loaded. For thirty years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me, and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this - which I think is wisdom - that if you find you can't make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road, don't you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way station where there's a cemetery. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]