These ageism quotes will inspire you. Ageism, also spelled agism, is stereotyping and/or discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging ageism quotes, ageism sayings, and ageism proverbs.
Best Ageism Quotes
- “Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there’s this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I’m in the middle ground – I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.” ~ Alanis Morissette
- “We’ve made so many advances in other areas – civil rights, gay rights – but ageism is still an area that’s taboo and not talked about and dealt with.” ~ Madonna Ciccone
- “Not only do we suffer from racism and sexism, but we also suffer from ageism. And that is that once you reach a certain age, you’re not allowed to be adventurous, you’re not allowed to be sexual and I think that’s rather hideous. […] I mean, is there a rule? Are you just supposed to die when you’re 40?” ~ Madonna Ciccone
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“Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.” ~ Claude Pepper
- “Age-based retirement arbitrarily severs productive persons from their livelihood, squanders their talents, scars their health, strains an already overburdened Social Security system, and drives many elderly people into poverty and despair. Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.” ~ Claude Pepper
- “So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.” ~ Tina Fey
- “What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people’s attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, “Give me a break!”” ~ Yoko Ono
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“We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies – the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Ageism is the racism of the gay world. We really believe that age-and all of our fears that it carries-will “rub off” on us, the way that racists once believed blackness would.” ~ Perry Brass
- “As a young woman working in journalism, I assumed harassment and discrimination came with the territory and that you just had to get on with the job. As I rose to senior positions, it took me a while to realize that just because I’d survived relatively unscathed didn’t mean the younger women joining the profession would do so, and it isn’t until you hit a certain age that the reality of ageism – which is much more acute for women – kicks in.” ~ Catherine Mayer
- “Think about the pressure to “pass” by lying about one’s age that familiar temptation to falsify a condition of one’s birth or identity and pretend to be part of a more favored group. Fair-skinned blacks invented “passing” as a term, Jews escaping anti-Semitism perfected the art, and the sexual closet continues the punishment, but pretending to be a younger age is probably the most encouraged form of “passing,” with the least organized support for “coming out” as one’s true generational self.” ~ Gloria Steinem
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“There’s more than just racism. There’s ageism and sexism as well.” ~ Brandon Marshall
- “I am concerned about ageism and the loss of beauty – the perception that as you grow older, you ‘lose your looks,’ which I think is diabolical.” ~ Erin O’Connor
- “Honestly, what is ageism really, you know? If you take care of yourself and you feel good then that’s really all that matters at the end of the day.” ~ Shay Mitchell
- “All the many brands of suppression – racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism – are historical; they have not been always with us. It was not ever thus. And it’s not going to be this way, come the revolution!” ~ Clara Fraser
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“Avoid internalizing society’s sexism, racism, ageism – pick an ism, any ism.” ~ Paul Krassner
- “There’s ageism in everything. I don’t give a hoot. It isn’t what other people think; it’s what you think. But it’s hard to come to terms with getting older. I admire people like Vivienne Westwood.” ~ Cyndi Lauper
- “Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.” ~ Gary L. Francione
- “All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I’m bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I’ve read – everything good, strong, kind, and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody’s racism or sexism or ageism.” ~ Maya Angelou
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“It’s getting better but men still earn more and there are more jobs for them. Ageism is a big thing. Parts for women disappear as you get older.” ~ Julie Walters
- “Prejudice against women is many, many times intensified against older women. You are viewed not as an intellect but as a body…. Astonishingly, even women’s liberation has paid extraordinarily little attention to the older woman and to the fact that her job is limited because she is [older]. They say that women shouldn’t be sex objects, but you damned well better be a sex object if you want to get ahead in television.” ~ Elinor Guggenheimer
- “There’s racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. But bad news is not news. We’ve had bad news as a species for a long time. We’ve had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Didn’t Lionel Richie just make a country album? No one is giving him a hard time… and God bless him – I love Lionel and should be able to do what he wants to do, like Madonna should, too. Both are having success and I applaud them. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. The ageism criticism is getting old.” ~ Guy Oseary
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“It’s just something that I like, and I also don’t buy into the ageism theory.” ~ Joan Collins
- “I’ve never had to deal with ageism – so far – in my career; I have been able to navigate my career and getting older and the roles and opportunities that have come to me.” ~ Sutton Foster
- “We know longer live in a homogenous society, it is not black, white, Asian or Latin, it is a melting pot. Until we learn to assimilate and learn about other cultures, we will continue to have racism problems. Of course, there are other ‘-isms’ as our ills. We have sexism, ageism, elitism, homophobia-ism, there are many -isms we have to overcome.” ~ Octavia Spencer
- “French culture takes ageing very seriously. There’s much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.” ~ Kristin Scott Thomas
Ageism term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors and patterned on sexism and racism.
