«And what's a life? - a weary pilgrimage, Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age»

«O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, and all her various objects of delight annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, they creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, within doors, or without, still as a fool, in power of others, never in my own; scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.»

«How can I tolerate the slightest inconvenience to them, the women, the children, the? sick, the aged, the blind, the decrepit, that come for counsel, consolation, courage and cure?»

«The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.»