40+ Inspirational Retirement Quotes and Sayings

Retirement can be really inspiring. Being free from work, the chance to do what you want whenever you want – it’s an exciting time for those retiring and the people around them.

But if you need a bit of reminding about how great retirement can be then an inspirational retirement quote should do the trick. These quotes demonstrate just how inspiring retirement is to so many of us.

They are also perfect for celebrating your own retirement or helping to inspire and wish someone else a happy retirement. That could be in person or with a card and a gift – whichever way you think is best.

So enjoy these motivational and uplifting retirement quotes and feel good about retiring and all the exciting new things it can bring to your life!

Inspirational Retirement Quotes

• “Retirement means doing whatever I want to do. It means choice” – Dianne Nahirny
• “Life begins at retirement” – Unknown
• “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
• “Retire from work, but not from life” – M. K. Soni
• “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
• “Retirement, a time to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, where you want to do it, and, how you want to do it” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “Retirement is not the end of the road. It is the beginning of the open highway” – Unknown
• “Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to” – Harry Emerson Fosdick
• “Sit back and relax and do the things you never got a chance to do” – Julie Hebert
• “Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it” – Bernard Baruch
• “You can’t retire from being great” – Unknown

SEE MORE: Retirement Wishes for Coworkers and Colleagues

Inspirational Retirement Quotes for Coworkers

• “I try to treat each evening and weekend as little slices of retirement because no one is guaranteed a lengthy one at the end of their career” – Mike Hammar
• “Retirement is not a work status, it’s an attitude” – Unknown
• “I work harder now that I have retired from corporate life, than when I actually worked, but I love it” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “Retirement may be an ending, a closing, but it is also a new beginning” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “I’m not just retiring from the company, I’m also retiring from my stress, my commute, my alarm clock, and my iron” – Hartman Jule
• “Planning to retire? Before you do, find your hidden passion, do the thing that you have always wanted to do” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “As in all successful ventures, the foundation of a good retirement is planning” – Earl Nightingale
• “There are so many other interesting ways to spend your time. I feel like early retirement is a gift, but it’s such an incredible gift. It’s a gift I need to use” – Martha Felt-Bardon
• “The key to retirement is to find joy in the little things”- Susan Miller
• “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” – Jack Canfield

SEE MORE: Retirement Messages for Teachers

Heartwarming Retirement Quotes

• “Retirement, a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “Best wishes on your retirement. Enjoy a rest that’s overdue. Take pleasure in the finer things that are awaiting you” – Judith Wibberley
• “Age [along with retirement] appears to be best in four things – old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read” – Francis Bacon
• “When you retire, think and act as if you were still working; when you’re still working, think and act a bit as if you were already retired.” – Unknown
• “There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working” – Robert Half
• “You have to put off being young until you can retire” – Unknown
• “Retirement is having nothing to do and someone always keeping you from it” – Robert Brault
• “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing” – George Bernard Shaw
• “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter” – Mark Twain
• “To me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing” – Dick Van Dyke

SEE MORE: Retirement Wishes for a Doctor

Uplifting Retirement Quotes

• “Retirement is wonderful if you have two essentials – much to live on and much to live for. I believe that I now have both” – Unknown
• “Retirement – now life begins” – Catherine Pulsifer
• “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save” – Will Rogers, Autobiography, 1949
• “But what, it may be asked, are the requisites for a life of retirement? A man may be weary of the toils and torments of business, and yet quite unfit for the tranquil retreat. Without literature, friendship, and religion, retirement is in most cases found to be a dead, flat level, a barren waste, and a blank. Neither the body nor the soul can enjoy health and life in a vacuum” – Richter
• “Retirement has been a discovery of beauty for me,” Hartman said in sudden seriousness. “I never had the time before to notice the beauty of my grandkids, my wife, the tree outside my very own front door. And, the beauty of time itself” – Terri Guillemets
• “Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it” – Gene Perret
• “For retirement brings repose, and repose allows a kindly judgment of all things” – John Sharp Williams
• “A gold watch is the most appropriate gift for retirement, as its recipients have given up so many of their golden hours in a lifetime of service” – Terri Guillemets
• “Don’t act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you have always been” – J. A. West
• “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering” – Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

SEE MORE: Retirement Quotes for Nurses

Hopefully these inspirational retirement quotes will have cheered you up about retiring or helped you to wish someone else a happy retirement in an uplifting way.

Remember that whilst it may seem scary retirement has many positives to look forward to.