Aging & Wisdom Quote by Bernard Baruch

Baruch’s line flatters the sentimental reader, then quietly drafts them into a code of conduct. Coming from a businessman who made a career out of value, utility, and hard choices, the move is sly: he borrows the language of “service” and “pleasure” (the cold metrics of markets) only to argue against living by them. The punch is in the double negative - “should no more be abandoned” - a moral brake slammed onto the logic of disposal.

The pairing of “old books” and “old friends” isn’t just cozy analogy. It’s a rebuke to the American habit, especially in the early 20th century, of treating everything as upgradeable: technology, tastes, even relationships. Baruch lived through booms, busts, and the rise of mass consumer culture; in that context, the quote reads like a warning about a society learning to confuse freshness with worth. What’s “ceased to be of service” might still be a repository of memory, identity, and hard-won perspective - forms of value that don’t show up on a balance sheet.

The subtext is also self-protective, even elite. Old books are status objects; old friends are social capital. Baruch is arguing for loyalty, but also for continuity: keep the artifacts, keep the people, keep the past within reach. Not because they entertain you today, but because your future self will need the proof that you once were someone who could stay.