Instead of bewailing a lost youth, a man nowadays begins to wonder, when he reaches my ripe age of forty-two, if ever his past will subside and be comfortably by-gone. – D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930)

Young twigs will bend, but not old trees. – Dutch Proverb [Quoted in Woordenboek der Nederduitsche en Fransche Taalen/ Dicti

From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.