"I am grown older by a great many years since my first
publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt
whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two
several persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were
a fine thing to be old, if we only travelled towards improvement;
but 'tis a drunken, stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that
of reeds, which the air casually waves to and fro at pleasure."
-- Michel De Montaigne, Essays: Book III
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/montaigne/Montaigne-3.pdf]