Retirement is a time where many people look back on their life and reflect. It can be an emotional rollercoaster, as retirement can mean different things to different people. Some people see retirement as a time of rest and relaxation while others may feel the weight of regret or the fear of boredom during retirement. Whatever your feelings are about retirement, it is important to take some time for yourself before you retire in order to celebrate what has been accomplished thus far and prepare for what will come next, These 56 retirement quotes should help inspire you on your journey!
Retirement is a time for reflection. You have spent decades working and now it’s time to put your feet up, relax, and enjoy retirement. But retirement can also be a difficult transition that requires some adjustment. How do you know when the time has come? What are the best ways to prepare for retirement? These are questions many people contemplate during their retirement planning process. To help answer these questions I have collected 56 of my favourite retirement quotes from various sources below:
The hardest part of retirement is the day you’re no longer working. It’s not because it means that your time in the workforce has come to an end, but instead because it marks a new chapter in life.” “It’s important to enjoy some of those idle days while they last—whether it be by having coffee on the porch or taking up a hobby you’ve always wanted to try.
Inspirational Retirement Quotes
- The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can’t see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller
- If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles. ~Doug Larson
- Retire from work, but not from life. ~M.K. Soni
- In my retirement, I go for a short swim at least once or twice every day. It’s either that or buy a new golf ball. ~Gene Perret
- Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
- Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing Nothing without worrying about getting caught at it. ~Gene Perret
- The best time to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does. ~Author Unknown
- The money’s no better in retirement, but the hours are! ~Anonymous
- When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch. ~R.C. Sherriff
- There’s never enough time to do all the Nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
- Retirement means no pressure, no stress, no heartache… unless you play golf. ~Gene Perret
- Retirement is the ugliest word in the language. ~Ernest Hemingway
- When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income. ~Chi Chi Rodriguez
- A retired husband is often a wife’s full-time job. ~Ella Harris
Famous Retirement Quotes
- Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. ~Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne
- There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
- Retirement: World’s longest coffee break. ~Author Unknown
- Sometimes it’s hard to tell if retirement is a reward for a lifetime of hard work or a punishment. ~Anonymous
- Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did. ~Malcolm Forbes
- When you retire, you switch bosses – from the one who hired you to the one who married you. ~Gene Perret
- I’m retired – goodbye tension, hello pension! ~Author Unknown
- When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income. ~Chi Chi Rodriguez
- A retired husband is often a wife’s full-time job. ~Ella Harris
- If you are going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don’t have to waste energy going back to pick it up. ~Tommy Bolt
- A gold watch is the most appropriate gift for retirement, as its recipients have given up so many of their golden hours in a lifetime of service. ~Harry Mahtar
- Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. ~William Wordsworth
- Middle age is when work is a lot less fun, and fun is a lot more work. ~Author Unknown
- When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking. ~Gail Sheehy
Best Retirement Quotes
- Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun. ~Jim Bishop
- Retirement: That’s when you return from work one day and say, “Hi, Honey, I’m home – forever.” ~Gene Perre
- The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off. ~Abe Lemons
- First, you forget names; then you forget faces; then you forget to zip up your fly, and then you forget to unzip your fly. ~Branch Rickey
- When you retire, think and act as if you were still working; when you’re still working, think and act a bit as if you were already retired. ~Author Unknown
- I’m now as free as the breeze – with roughly the same income. ~Gene Perret
- Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty. ~Harry Vardon
- You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. ~Author Unknown
- Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. ~Herbert Asquith
- I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work. So I do it three or four times a day. ~Gene Perret
- In retirement, every day is Boss Day, and every day is Employee Appreciation Day. ~Anonymous
- Retired is being twice tired; I’ve thought First tired of working, Then tired of not. ~Richard Armour
- Retirement has been a discovery of beauty for me. I never had the time before to notice the beauty of my grandkids, my wife, the tree outside my very own front door. And the beauty of time itself. ~Hartman Jule
- 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
Quotes About Retirement
- Retirement without the love of letters is a living burial. ~Seneca
- There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working. ~Robert Half
- Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five, I still had pimples. ~George Burns
- 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
- I’ve been attending lots of seminars since my retirement. They’re called naps. ~Merri Brownworth
- If you drink, don’t drive. Don’t even putt. ~Dean Martin
- Retirement itself is the best gift. No gold watch could ever top it. ~Abigail Charleson
- The challenge of retirement is how to spend time without spending money. ~Author Unknown
- Retirement: It’s nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese. ~Gene Perret
- Life begins at retirement. ~Author Unknown
- Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. ~Bernard Baruch
- The question isn’t at what age I want to retire; it’s at what income. ~George Foreman
- Rest is not idleness, and to sometimes lie on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. ~J. Lubbock
- Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. ~Will Rogers, Autobiography, 1949
Conclusion
Do you have a favorite retirement quote that has stuck with you over the months? Share it below in the comments section and tell us why you find it so inspirational. We’d love to hear from all of our readers on what they think about this season as we say goodbye to summer, hello fall and prepare for winter.