In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.

Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.

Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.

Tis hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for example.

Every age, Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned By those who have not lived past it.

The "good old times"-all times when old are good- Are gone.

How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.

The "times," "the age" what is that, but a few profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the times?

Every age thinks its battle the most important of all.

If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to suppose that all previous ages were less sick.