Aging & Wisdom Quote by Ambrose Bierce

Bierce turns the comforting myth of “wisdom” into a trapdoor. Experience, in his telling, isn’t a moral upgrade; it’s a change of inventory. The line pivots on “revelation,” a word that usually promises clarity and salvation, then uses that sacred glow to expose something nastier: growth as a series of substitutions. We don’t stop being wrong. We just get new, age-appropriate ways to be wrong, with better justifications and worse consequences.

The construction is a perfect Biercean barb. “Renounce” sounds virtuous, like a clean break with youthful foolishness. Then comes the sting: we renounce those errors only “for those of age.” That preposition matters. It implies a trade, not a cure. Youth’s mistakes are often impulsive, romantic, theatrically sincere; age’s errors tend to be institutional, defensive, wrapped in “common sense.” The older version of error is harder to spot because it wears the uniform of experience itself.

Context helps: Bierce wrote as a journalist sharpened by war, political corruption, and Gilded Age boosterism, when “progress” was both a slogan and a grift. His cynicism isn’t mere pose; it’s a critique of a culture that sells maturity as inevitability and authority as evidence. The subtext lands like a warning: don’t confuse time served with insight earned. Experience can illuminate, yes, but it can just as easily sanctify our latest rationalizations.