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Why the Young Overdo Everything and the Old Under-Do Everything

The Three Ages of Life: The Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone (Persephone, Demeter, and Doso)

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 8 September 2026.

In Books II.12–14 of the Rhetoric, Aristotle contrasts the characters of the young and the old with those in the prime of life.

His purpose is practical. To persuade people, we need to understand how their age affects their passions, expectations, and judgement. These portraits are, of course, generalisations—but exceptionally penetrating ones.

The Character of Youth

According to Aristotle, the young have strong but changeable passions. They are quick-tempered and lacking in self-control, and this makes them all the more likely to yield to their desires. They are eager for superiority and easily feel slighted. They love honour and victory more than money, and would rather do noble deeds than useful ones.

As the greater part of their life lies before them, they live more in expectation than in memory. Lacking in experience, they have exalted notions and tend to see the good rather than the bad. They are confident and courageous, partly because they have not yet suffered many defeats.

Although they are accepting of the conventions of their society, they have not yet learned to value their friends for their usefulness. They enjoy spending their days with others and are quick to pity because they assume that everyone is honest—or, at least, more honest than they really are.

If they wrong others, it is more to insult than to do real harm. As they are fond of fun, they are witty—wit being nothing other than well-bred insolence.

Above all, the young think they know everything, and so they overdo everything. This is the source of all their mistakes.

The Character of Old Age

In contrast to the young, the old live by memory rather than by hope. As they have a great deal of experience, they are certain about nothing and under-do everything.

They are small-minded because they have been humbled by life. They desire nothing great or extraordinary, but only what is sufficient for survival. As a result, they are driven too much by the useful and not enough by the noble.

They are cynical and distrustful, not necessarily because of bad character, but because experience has taught them how often people act badly. They neither love warmly nor hate bitterly, but love as though they might one day hate and hate as though they might one day love.

Unlike the young, they are not shy but shameless. Having come to value expediency over reputation, they feel only contempt for what other people may think of them.

Yet, paradoxically, the old cling more tightly to life. As that which is desired most strongly is that which is needed most urgently, they love life all the more as their last day approaches.

The Prime of Life

The body, says Aristotle, is in its prime from the ages of thirty to thirty-five, and the mind at about forty-nine.

The character of people in their prime lies between that of the young and that of the old. They are neither overly confident nor overly timid, neither trustful nor mistrustful. They are guided both by what is noble and by what is useful.

The young possess courage but not caution; the old caution but not courage. The young are warm-hearted but naïve; the old perceptive but cold. Those in the prime of life combine the strengths of each while avoiding their corresponding faults.

As Aristotle puts it:

To put it generally, all the valuable qualities that youth and age divide between them are united in the prime of life, while all their excesses or defects are replaced by moderation and fitness.

This is the familiar architecture of Aristotle’s ethics. Virtue lies not in either extreme but in the fitting mean between them.

Yet his deepest contrast may be the simplest: the young live in expectation, and the old in memory. The art of growing older is to preserve enough expectation to remain open to life, while acquiring enough memory not to be deceived by it.