50 Retirement Quotes For Your New Phase Of Life

It’s finally here: that time you have been working towards for your whole life to the point it seems unreal. In honor of your hard work and dedication for most of your life, here are retirement quotes to help you ease into this new chapter, along with some greetings to wish your fellow retirees. 

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Funny Retirement Quotes

While your life up until now may have been lots of serious business, now that you're retired, you have plenty of time to joke around.

1. “Retirement: That’s when you return from work one day and say, 'Hi, Honey, I’m home forever.'” — Gene Perret 

2. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Mark Twain 

3. "Working people have a lot of bad habits, but the worst of those is work." — Clarence Darrow 

4. "What do you call a person who is happy on a Monday? Retired." 

5. "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there would be no shortage of fishing poles." — Doug Larson 

6. "The trouble with retirement is you never get the day off." — Abe Lemons

7. "Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing." — Oliver Wendell Holmes 

8. "A lot of friends complain about their retirement. We tell 'em to get a life." — Vince Lombardi 

9. "Golf is played by 20 million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun." — Jim Bishop 

10. “Retirement means doing whatever I want to do. It means choice." — Dianne Nahirny 

11. "As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did." — Robert Benchley

12. “Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.” — George Burns 

13. “A retired husband is often a wife’s full-time job.” — Ella Harris

14. “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” — Kitty O’Neill Collins

15. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell if retirement is a reward for a lifetime of hard work or a punishment.” — Terri Guillemets

Inspirational Retirement Quotes

Get some motivation to make the most of your new-found free time.

16. “Retirement’s the most wonderful thing. I get to enjoy all the things I never stopped to notice on the way up. After an extraordinary life, it’s time to enjoy my retirement.” — Patrick Macnee

17. “There is a whole new kind of life ahead, full of experiences just waiting to happen. Some call it ‘retirement.’ I call it ‘bliss.’” — Betty Sullivan

18. “Living each day as if it were your last doesn’t mean your last day of retirement on a remote island. It means to live fully, authentically and spontaneously with nothing being held back.” 

19. “Retirement is a blank sheet of paper. It is a chance to redesign your life into something new and different.” — Patrick Foley 

20. “I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don’t know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.” — Dick Van Dyke 

21. “I see retirement as just another of these reinventions, another chance to do new things and be a new version of myself.” — Walt Mossberg

22. “For many, retirement is a time for personal growth, which becomes the path to greater freedom.” — Robert Delmantague 

23. “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson 

24. “Retirement is a new beginning, and that means closing the book on one chapter in order to begin the next.” — Sid Miramontes

25. “As in all successful ventures, the foundation of a good retirement is planning.” — Earl Nightingale

26. “Stay young at heart, kind in spirit, and enjoy retirement living.” — Danielle Duckery

27. “Retirement life is different because there is no set routine. You are able to let the day unfold as it should. Enjoy, be happy and live each day.” — Suzanne Steel

28. “As your life changes, it takes time to recalibrate, to find your values again. You might also find that retirement is the time when you stretch out and find your potential.” — Sid Miramontes

29. “Congratulations on making it over all the hurdles and reaching that wonderful time of life where you get to do whatever you want.” — Stella Rheingo

30. “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” — Sophia Loren

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Retirement Wishes For Cards

Wishing someone a happy retirement? Whether you're there yet or not, these words will wish them the best.

31. “You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream.” — C.S. LEWIS

32. “Don’t act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you have always been.” — J.A. West

33. “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” — Fred Rogers 

34. “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing.” — George Bernard Shaw 

35. "You can never have the comeback if you don't have the retirement." — Chael Sonnen 

36. "Retirement: a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked." — Catherine Pulisfer 

37. “The world’s longest coffee break is often referred to as retirement.”

38. “How do you know it’s time to retire? It’s when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it!”

39. “Retirement isn’t the end of the road, but just a turn in the road.”

40. “Retirement is the only time in your life when time no longer equals money.”

41. “Say goodbye to tension and hello to your pension.”

42. “It’s sad to say goodbye, but great to see you are on your way to greener pastures.”

43. “Think about it, now you never have to ask for a day off again. Happy Retirement!” 

44. “Welcome to happy Mondays!”

45. “Enjoy working at living, instead of living at work.”

46. “I hope you’re looking forward to the feeling of never having to go to bed at night and set an alarm again.” 

47. “Well done on climbing the mountain, now you can finally enjoy the view!”

48. “Congratulations on extending your weekends by 5 days!” 

49. “It is better to live rich than to die rich.” — Samuel Johnson

50. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” — Vince Lombardi

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Isabell Tenorio is a writer who covers astrology, pop culture, love and relationship topics.