"To be old can be glorious, if one has not unlearned how to begin"
About this Quote
Old age, Buber suggests, isn’t a landing point; it’s a skill issue. The line turns the usual bargain of aging on its head: we assume the glory of later life comes from accumulation (wisdom, perspective, a hard-won calm). Buber makes it conditional and a little accusatory. If you’re old and not “glorious,” it may be because you’ve misplaced the most basic human muscle: beginning.
That verb, “unlearned,” is doing quiet violence. It implies that starting fresh is natural to us before social life trains it out - through caution, status, routine, or the bruising arithmetic of past failures. The phrase frames cynicism as a kind of education: experience can teach you not to try, not to risk embarrassment, not to stake your self on anything uncertain. In Buber’s world, that’s a spiritual diminishment, not mere pragmatism.
Context matters: Buber is the philosopher of relation, best known for I-Thou, where authentic life is less about managing objects than meeting persons and the divine in real encounter. “How to begin” isn’t just taking up hobbies at 70. It’s the courage to re-enter relation - to treat the next conversation, the next day, the next ethical choice as genuinely new, not pre-filed under “I already know how this goes.”
The line also reads as post-catastrophe philosophy: written by a European Jewish thinker who lived through the shattering of old certainties, it insists that renewal is not naive. It’s survival with dignity.
That verb, “unlearned,” is doing quiet violence. It implies that starting fresh is natural to us before social life trains it out - through caution, status, routine, or the bruising arithmetic of past failures. The phrase frames cynicism as a kind of education: experience can teach you not to try, not to risk embarrassment, not to stake your self on anything uncertain. In Buber’s world, that’s a spiritual diminishment, not mere pragmatism.
Context matters: Buber is the philosopher of relation, best known for I-Thou, where authentic life is less about managing objects than meeting persons and the divine in real encounter. “How to begin” isn’t just taking up hobbies at 70. It’s the courage to re-enter relation - to treat the next conversation, the next day, the next ethical choice as genuinely new, not pre-filed under “I already know how this goes.”
The line also reads as post-catastrophe philosophy: written by a European Jewish thinker who lived through the shattering of old certainties, it insists that renewal is not naive. It’s survival with dignity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Philosophy of Martin Buber (Martin Buber, 1967)
Evidence: To be old is a glorious thing when one has not unlearned what it means to begin; this old man had even perhaps first learned it thoroughly in old age. (Autobiographical Fragments, §14 “Question and Answer” (exact printed page not verifiable from the web text view I accessed)). This wording appears in Martin Buber’s own “Autobiographical Fragments” (included in the edited volume *The Philosophy of Martin Buber*, Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XII). In context, Buber is describing Reverend Hechler in May 1914 (“Question and Answer”). Your variant (“To be old can be glorious, if one has not unlearned how to begin”) is a common paraphrase/modernized restatement; the primary-source English text here uses “is a glorious thing … what it means to begin.” This 1967 volume is not necessarily the FIRST publication of the line (it is an anthology volume that reprints Buber material), but it *does* verify the quote as Buber’s own writing and gives the 1914 setting described in the narrative. To truly establish first publication, one would need the original German publication details for this fragment (or its earliest appearance) and a page-cited scan from that edition. Other candidates (1) Savoring Sage Time (I. Leahanna Young, 2012) compilation95.0% ... Martin Buber said, “To be old can be glorious if one has not unlearned how to begin.”2 Staying aware of the tempt... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Buber, Martin. (2026, March 3). To be old can be glorious, if one has not unlearned how to begin. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-old-can-be-glorious-if-one-has-not-443/
Chicago Style
Buber, Martin. "To be old can be glorious, if one has not unlearned how to begin." FixQuotes. March 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-old-can-be-glorious-if-one-has-not-443/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"To be old can be glorious, if one has not unlearned how to begin." FixQuotes, 3 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-be-old-can-be-glorious-if-one-has-not-443/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2026.
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