“With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.”
The Book of Job, c. 500 BC · spoken by Job to his friends
Chapter 8
What the Old Would Tell the Young
“Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.”
Solomon, c. 700 BC · traditional author of the book of Proverbs
“Stand in the multitude of the ancients that are wise, and cleave unto him with all thy heart.”
Jesus ben Sira, c. 180 BC · Jerusalem scribe, writing for young men
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Solomon, c. 700 BC · traditional author of the book of Proverbs
“At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven.”
Confucius, c. 479 BC · looking back over the course of his own life
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Frederick Douglass, 1857 · born enslaved, orator and abolitionist
Over ten years, more than a thousand people aged seventy to a hundred and eight were asked what they had learned. Their answers agreed far more than they disagreed.
Cornell Legacy Project, 2012 · a ten-year study of the practical advice of long lives
Eighty years of records led to one plain conclusion. It is not money and it is not fame that keeps a life good. It is the people you stay close to.
Harvard Study of Adult Development, 2017 · 724 lives followed from adolescence, and then their children
People in happy marriages in their eighties reported that their mood held steady even on the days when their bodies hurt the most.
Harvard Study of Adult Development, 2017 · the longest running study of one group of lives, begun 1938
The link between self-control in childhood and how a life turned out held right across the range, and it held regardless of a child's intelligence or the money their family had.
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, 2011 · 1,000 New Zealanders tracked from birth, reported by Moffitt and colleagues
The people interviewed had no patience for worry as a strategy. The best antidote they described was plain and physical: get up and take the action instead.
Cornell Legacy Project, 2012 · over 1,200 people aged 70 to 108 interviewed across ten years
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