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Quotations about Birthdays
& Happy Birthday Quotes
Welcome to my page of quotations for and about birthdays.
The first fact about the celebration of birthdays is that it is a good way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton, "Our Birthday," 1935
There will be many loving thoughts hovering around you like Angels to‑day. ~Birthday letter quoted in J.R. Macduff, Birthdays, 1893
...he's younger every birth‑day than he was the year before. ~Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 1839
It's never too late to become what you want to be. Unless you want to be younger. ~Internet meme
I would garner the joys of the years that have passed
Into one Perfect Day, if I could,
And its music would be but the brook's laughing lilt,
Its quiet the calm of the wood;
And this wonderful day, with its sunshine and warmth,
With its smiles and its flowers, its cheer,
I would fashion for you, that the whole world might know
'Tis your birthday, the sweet o' the year.
~W. Dayton Wegefarth (1885–1973), "Your Birthday," Rainbow Verse: A Book of Helpful Sunny Philosophy, 1919
Who doesn't awaken on their birthday with a tingle, a heart-skip of excitement? A thrill of a thrill, a nascent throb?... In any case, a heightened awareness of a period of personal significance. Of specialness. Our birthday is the anniversary of our self, the blessing of the fact of our being. ~Donna Henes, "Telling Time: Birthdays," Celestially Auspicious Occasions: Seasons, Cycles & Celebrations, 1996
We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? ~Gilbert K. Chesterton, "The Ethics of Elfland," Orthodoxy, 1908
A Daily Ride Earth gives to everyone,
And every Year a Trip around the Sun.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Stars," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip. ~Author unknown
Birthdays would be excellent institutions were it only for the pleasant little inflation they bring. ~Mary Wright Sewell (1797–1884)
We know we're getting old when the only thing we want for our birthday is not to be reminded of it. ~Author unknown
Birthdays! What music in the world! In these unresting times, when nothing intellectual, economic, social, political, seems stable; when customs and traditions hoary with age are mixed with explosive elements, this oldest of institutions is not in danger of yielding to destructive forces. ~J.R. Macduff, Birthdays, 1893
Your birthday, as my own, to me is dear....
But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.
~Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), "To Quintius Ovidius," translated by William Hay
The only thing worse than having another birthday is not having another one. ~Andy Rooney, "Birthdays," 1995, Years of Minutes, 2003
When we reach a certain age we begin to wonder at the enthusiasm children display over their birthdays. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
It's your birthday to-day, so why are we waiting?
Without further delay, Let's start celebrating.
~Norman Wesley Brooks, 1967
The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. ~Doug Larson, unverified
In childhood, we yearn to be grown-ups. In old age, we yearn to be kids. It just seems that all would be wonderful if we didn't have to celebrate our birthdays in chronological order. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Often have I reckoned up on my birthday the increasing years — the feathers in the broad wing of time — and thought upon the sounding flights of youth... ~Johann Paul Friedrich Richter
May ev'ry birthday sweetly bring,
A thousand proofs of love;
A pure and perfect crystal spring
Of bliss from Heav'n above!
~George Wells, Golden Wishes, 1885
Life is momentous,—never more so than when the Birthday chimes are ringing their new peals. ~Wigram, quoted in J.R. Macduff, Birthdays, 1893
How wildly Time rolls and tumbles and tosses
Over the world with its joys and its losses!
Winters and Summers, Octobers and Marches,
Frowning and smiling and garlands for larches.
Nature, untiring, her wind-harps is thumbing;
Beckoning on birthdays that ever are coming.
Progress is laughing, and counting her measures;
Past is receding, and hiding her treasures.
The Present forever, but never delaying,
Is here, and is gone, the while we are saying,
Time, in his flurry, but tumbles and tosses,
Jumbling our hopes with crowns and with crosses...
~Sara L. Vickers Oberholtzer, "A Birthday Jingle," 1891
Well, one can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.... ~Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea, 1909
This is my birthday, and a happier one
Was never mine...
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Divine Tragedy," 1871
There are people in the world who mark the sun's cycles on a stick, counting themselves graveward, as aunt Margery counted my cups of milk in days of yore by the chalk-marks above the shelf. You give grand birth-day parties, and have troops of friends rejoicing that a new leaf is turned over in your destiny — as though the new leaf were always sure to be brighter than the old... I too would fain tie a knot in my thread of life, lest it should slip through my fingers unheeded. So here is a notch in my stick — a little ink-mark to show that I have closed a paragraph, and, with almost the trembling uncertainty of a year ago, am about commencing another. ~Fanny Forester (Emily Chubbuck Judson)
Anticipate the day as if it was your birthday and you are turning six again. ~Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife, tweet, 2012
Tick tock—
It's cake o'clock!
~Internet meme
A birthday is a solemn thing; a fellow realizes then, how speedily the days take wing, the days that do not come again. ~Walt Mason (1862–1939), "Birthdays"
The mind, as you age,
Is an artist, it seems.
Monet paints your mem'ries,
Picasso your dreams.
~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
[W]e never get too old to do goofy stuff; we just get old enough to think we do. ~Leave It To Beaver, "Beaver's Rat," 1961, written by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher [S4, E31, Ward Cleaver]
Your birthday is the beginning of your own personal new year... each new birthday is a chance to begin again, to start over, to take a new grip on life... It is a time to toss old hatreds, resentments, grudges and fears into the wastebasket of life; a time to forgive and forget, a time to stretch your soul... It is a time to dust off your dreams and shine up your ideals. ~Wilferd A. Peterson, "The Art of Renewal"
to be remembered on one's birthday
is a thrill — to know others are saying
with cakes, cards, and good wishes
thanks for being born into our lives!
~Terri Guillemets, "Keepsake," 2013
AGE Something to brag about in your wine-cellar and forget about in a
Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become quite routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once. ~Dave Barry, "Your Disintegrating Body," Dave Barry Turns 40, 1990
I suppose it's possible that the Sundance Kid didn't like to make much of his birthdays — they may have struck him as just another reminder that his draw was getting slower by the year — but what if he truly liked a major celebration? What if he looked forward every year to marking the day of his birth with what they used to call in the West "a real wingding, with pink balloons and a few survivors"? ~Calvin Trillin, "Special Occasion," Travels with Alice, 1989
My childhood may be over, but that doesn't mean playtime is. ~Ron Olson
In my soul there is an immortal kid refusing to keep up with my aging body. ~Shyma, @Shymalicious, August 2011 entry to The Quote Garden create your own quote contest on Twitter, @quotegarden
We mature in knowledge and wisdom but never leave the playground of our hearts. ~Terri Guillemets
So mayst thou live, dear! many years,
In all the bliss that life endears...
~Thomas Hood, "To My Daughter, On Her Birthday"
I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher. ~Mark Twain, a Biography
I am glad it is your birthday. It is this little bouquet's birthday too. Its Father is a very old man by the name of Nature... ~Emily Dickinson
Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy. ~Author unknown
For your birthday, friend,
I wrote this haiku for you.
Worst present ever.
~Kate Miller-Wilson, "Birthday Haiku," 20 Funny Haiku Poems, YourDictionary.com, 2020
BIRTHDAY Anniversary of one's birth. Observed only by men and children. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary, Executed by Gideon Wurdz, Master of Pholly, Doctor of Loquacious Lunacy, etc., 1904
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
Do you count your birthdays thankfully?
Can't watch you blow your candles out,
Can't help you eat your cake
But I have made a happy wish
For every bite you'll take.
~Current ®, "Happy Birthday," from Post-A-Note postcards, circa 1950s–1970s, CurrentCatalog.com
They're not gray hairs. They're wisdom highlights. ~Author unknown
Don't get old, and don't run with scissors. ~J.L.W. Brooks, "Sixty-eight," 2017
Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. ~Jim Fiebig, as quoted in The Reader's Digest, 1981
[I]n a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities. ~E. B. White, "A Weekend with the Angels" (Interlude in a hospital during World
Age is like the latest version of a software — it has a bunch of great new features but you lost all the cool features the previous version had. ~Terri Guillemets, "Thirties and beyond," 2006
May you live to be a hundred years
With one extra year to repent.
~Irish toast
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published 2000 Aug 20
revised Jul 2016, Jan 2021
last saved 2022 Feb 24
www.quotegarden.com/birthday.html