Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.

Forty is a most beautiful age for both men and women. Did you know that in mystic thought forty symbolizes the ascent from one level to a higher one and spiritual awakening? When we mourn we mourn for forty days. When a baby is born it takes
forty days for him to get ready to start life on earth. And when we are in love we need to wait for forty days to be sure of our feelings.
The Flood of Noah lasted forty days, and while the waters destroyed life, they also washed all impurity away and enabled human beings to make a new, fresh start. In Islamic mysticism there are forty degrees between man and God. Likewise, there are four basic stages of consciousness and ten degrees in each, making forty levels in total. Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days and nights. Muhammad was forty years old when he received the call to become a prophet. Buddha meditated under a linden tree for forty days. Not to mention the forty rules of Shams.
You receive a new mission at forty, a new lease on life! You have reached a most auspicious number. Congratulations! And don’t worry about getting old. There are no wrinkles or gray hair strong enough to defy the power of forty!

Listen, you are no longer a boy. You are forty. When will you learn not to wait for chance but to build on what you have and use each day to consolidate your position? Why have you never been anything more than Tribune? Because your plans always begin with next month.

What Turning Forty Means to Me

I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn't used to have to do that. But now I do.

Chances of meeting this person, doing that thing, accumulate. Life is as I’ve said since I was ten, awfully interesting – if anything, quicker, keener at forty-four than twenty-four – more desperate I suppose, as the river shoots to Niagara – my new vision of death. ‘The one experience I shall never describe’ I said to Vita yesterday.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

When you're twenty-one, life is a roadmap. It's only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect that you've been looking at the map upside down, and not until you're forty are you entirely sure. By the time you're sixty, take it from me, you're fucking lost.

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

At twenty the will rules; at thirty the intellect; at forty the judgment.

She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn't help wondering from what direction.

Youthful vigor becomes more rot than wisdom. Hopeful optimism is battered by harsh reality. Health and understanding seem to intersect in one’s forties, the one peaking as the other begins its slow ascent. Maybe you’ll know one day what you should’ve taken the time to appreciate. Maybe it’ll be when your knees start popping, when your hands no longer work like they should. It probably won’t be any sooner.

Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the differences between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.

By forty, everyone has the face they deserve,’ wrote George Orwell,

The recurring number forty, for example, might not be meant literally. In spiritual literature, “forty” is often used to indicate a term of learning or change, such as the “forty days and forty nights” of Noah’s Flood. Forty is also called “the number of perseverance,” marking a period of growth through testing, trial and purification. After the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites endured “forty years of wandering” in the wilderness before they were ready to enter the Promised Land. Jesus, following the ancient practice of the prophets, went into the desert for a great seclusion of forty days, which he described as a period of purification and preparation for the next stage of his work. The Buddha attained final enlightenment after forty days of continuous meditation. One can find many examples, East and West.