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In today’s post, we’ll be sharing some of our favorite quotes to send someone you know into the next great adventure – retirement!
Retirement is a tricky subject to broach depending upon who you’re talking to, for some, it causes great uncertainty and for others, it’s a time of excitement. No matter who you are, your attitude and mindset shape how much enjoyment you get out of your twilight years.
That’s where retirement quotes can help!
Why You Should Read Retirement Quotes
If you’re saying a professional goodbye to someone you might have worked closely with for a long time it can be a surprisingly challenging subject.
Most people often say when asked about retirement that they’re eagerly looking forward to it, but there’s also often a look of uncertainty and anxiety – this is completely natural. Outside of family, our working lives are a gigantic portion of where we devote our time and energy.
In many cases our jobs and careers are a huge portion of our identity, when you encounter somebody new, one of the first questions you ask is “what do you do” and much of retirement is pondering the answer to that question outside of a job role.
So, if you or someone you know is about to enter retirement and it’s making you feel uneasy or a bit lost then don’t worry – you’re not alone at all and there’s a ton of fantastic wisdom and some great retirement quotes we can draw from to ease you into this portion of your life.
Retirement can force you to realize that your younger days are behind you and it’s time to let go of the reigns and hand things over to the next generation, this is not necessarily an easy thing to do as very few humans close the book having achieved everything they wanted to.
These retirement quotes will help you understand that contrary to the prevailing idea of this being the end of your productive years, it can be the beginning of a process of immense self-discovery and change.
73 Best Retirement Quotes to Wish Somone Good Luck
- “To me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.” – Dick Van Dyke
- “There is nothing to regret with a job well done.” – Joe Garcia
- “My retirement plan is to get thrown into a minimum security prison in Hawaii.” – Julius Sharpe
- “What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was? – Satchel Paige
- What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. – T.S Elliot
- “Retirement: That's when you return from work one day and say, ‘Hi honey, I'm home forever.'” – Gene Perret
- “I see retirement as just another of these reinventions, another chance to do new things and be a new version of myself.” – Walt Mossberg
- “I'm not just retiring from the company; I'm also retiring from my stress, my commute, my alarm clock, and my iron.” – Hartman Jule
- “Retirement is the only time in your life when time no longer equals money.” – Unknown
- “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.” – William Shakespeare
- “Retire from work, but not from life.” – M.K. Soni
- “Retirement is not the end of the road. It is the beginning of the open highway.” – Unknown
- “There is a whole new kind of life ahead, full of experiences just waiting to happen. Some call it ‘retirement.’ I call it ‘bliss’.” – Betty Sullivan
- “Working people have a lot of bad habits, but the worst of these is work.” – Clarence Darrow
- “Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.” – Bernard Baruch
- “Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.” – Simone De Beauvoir
- “In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Don't act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you always have been.” – J.A West
Don't act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you always have been.” – J.A West
- Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it. ”- Gene Perret
- “A lot of our friends complain about their retirement. We tell 'em to get a life.” – Larry Laser
- “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man.” – Scott Elledge
- “Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to.” – Harry Emerson Fosdick
- “What do you call a person who is happy on a Monday? Retired.” – Unknown
- “Gainfully unemployed, very proud of it, too.” – Charles Baxter
- “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi
- “To be idle is sometimes an excellent way of being busy.” – Thomas Carlyle
- “Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.” – Susan Cain
- “The key to retirement is to find joy in the little things.” – Susan Miller
- “When a man retires, his wife gets twice as much husband for half as much money.” – Chi Chi Rodriquez
- “We don’t grow older, we grow riper.” – Pablo Picasso
- “The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.” – Abe Lemons
- “There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.” – Bill Waterson
- “You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stopped laughing.” – Michael Pritchard
- “Why are people afraid of getting older? You feel wiser. You feel more mature. You feel like you know yourself better. You would trade that for softer skin? Not me!” – Anna Kournikova
- “Retirement, a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked.” – Catherine Pulsifer
- “Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.” – Soren Kierkegaard
- “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
- “In retirement, every day is Boss Day, and every day is Employee Appreciation Day.” – Unknown
- “There’s one thing I always wanted to do before I quit . . . . retire!” – Groucho Marx
- “When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.” – Gail Sheehy
- “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”- Henry David Thoreau
- “Retirement is when having a good time is your only job.” – Anon
- “Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
- “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.” – Jerry Seinfeld
- “Retirement gives you the time literally to recreate yourself through a sport, game or hobby that you always wanted to try or that you haven’t done in years.” – Steven Price
- “Retirement is a blank sheet of paper. It is a chance to redesign your life into something new and different.” – Patrick Foley
- “People will often forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
- “Golf is played by 20 million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.” – Jim Bishop
- “Goodbyes make you think. They make you realize what you’ve had, what you’ve lost, and what you’ve taken for granted.” – Ritu Ghatourey
- “How do you know it's time to retire? It's when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.” – Unknown
- “Retirement is not a life without purpose; it is the ongoing purpose that provides meaningfulness.” – Robert Rivers
- “You can never have the comeback if you don't have the retirement.” – Chael Sonnen
- “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “The most important thing is to enjoy your life” – Audrey Hepburn
The most important thing is to enjoy your life” – Audrey Hepburn
- “Stay young at heart, kind in spirit, and enjoy retirement living.” – Danielle Duckery
- “If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” – Paulo Coelho
- “As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.” – Robert Benchley
- “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
- “When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch.” – R.C. Sheriff
- “I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.” – Voltaire
- “Retirement is when you switch bosses from the one who hired you to the one who married you.” – Gene Perret
- “Retirement is like a long vacation in Las Vegas. The goal is to enjoy it to the fullest, but not so fully that you run out of money.” – Jonathan Clements
- “Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.” – Samuel Johnson
- “A retired husband is often a wife's full-time job.” – Ella Harris
- “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” – Will Rogers
- “Days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “For many, retirement is a time for personal growth, which becomes the path to greater freedom.” – Robert Delamontague
- “The best is yet to come!” – Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman
- “Sometimes it’s hard to tell if retirement is a reward for a lifetime of hard work or a punishment.” – Terri Guillemets
- “A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.” – James Allen
- “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” – Albert Einstein
Final Thoughts on Retirement Quotes
We wish all the best to anyone approaching the closing steps of the professional time in their lives. These quotes can help anyone develop an attitude that makes the most of retirement and spend this time that’s given to us to explore other parts of ourselves.
And if you want more inspirational quotes, be sure to check out these blog posts:
Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then watch this free video that details the 7-minute habit for planning your day to focus on what's truly important to you..
Tom Smith is a creative writer with over 6 years of professional experience. He discovered the joy of writing after covering some furniture in his childhood home with graffiti. In later years, he got himself a BA in creative writing and hasn’t looked back. After discovering the power of positive thinking and discovering the spiritual side of life, he believes it's a huge privilege to be able to write about all things personal development.
