Moses was eighty when he began leading the Jews to the Promised Land.
Caleb was eighty-five when he said, "Give me the mountain."
John Wesley was still traveling by horseback, and preaching three sermons a day at eighty-eight.
Socrates learned to play musical instruments at age eighty.
At ninety, Pablo Picasso was producing drawings and engravings
George Washington Carver became head of the Agriculture Department at eighty-one.
Thomas Edison invented the mimeograph at eighty-five.
Casey Stengel was seventy-five when he became manager of the Yankees.
Carl Sandburg wrote Remembrance Book at seventy.
Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals when he was seventy-eight.
Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex at seventy-five and Oedipus et Colonus at eighty-nine.
Titian completed his masterpiece, The Battle of Lepanto, at ninety-five.
Grandma Moses painted her way to success after age ninety. At one hundred, she was still painting.
At ninety-four, Bertrand Russell led international peace drives.
At ninety-three, George Bernard Shaw wrote the play Farfetched Fables.
At ninety-one, Eamon de Valera served as president of Ireland.
At ninety-one, Adolph Zukor was chairman of Paramount Pictures.
At eighty-nine, Mary Baker Eddy was directing the Christian Science Church.
At eighty-nine, Arthur Rubinstein gave one of his greatest recitals in New York City’s Carnegie Hall.
At eighty-nine, Albert Schweitzer headed a hospital in Africa.
At eighty-eight, Pablo Casals was giving cello concerts.
At eighty-eight, Michelangelo designed the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Colonel Sanders was seventy when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Ray Kroc was seventy when he began MacDonald’s. (As a vegetarian, I could have suggested some alternatives.)
About eleven years before she died, Fanny Crosby said, "There is nothing that could induce me to abandon my work. It means nothing to be eighty-four years old, because I am still young! What is the use of growing old? People grow old because they are not cheerful, and cheerfulness is one of the greatest accomplishments in the world." (Because I will be eighty-four in a few weeks, I enthusiastically echo her comments.)
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