100 Inspirational Retirement Quotes, Wishes and Messages
Retirement is a huge milestone in anyone’s life, so if you need the perfect words to congratulate someone special, we’ve rounded up all the best retirement quotes and wishes for your next post.
And don’t worry – if you want funny retirement messages that’ll make them laugh, we’ve got those too.
Go ahead and find the perfect one below.
Happy Retirement Quotes
“Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it.” – Gene Perret
“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 may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.” – Simone De Beauvoir
“The key to retirement is to find joy in the little things.” – Susan Miller
“Retirement has been a discovery of beauty for me. 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.” – Hartman Jule
“Retirement without the love of letters is a living burial.” – Seneca
“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” – Robert Woodruff
“To be idle is sometimes an excellent way of being busy.” – Thomas Carlyle
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” – Fred Rogers
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs
“There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.” – Bill Waterson, Calvin & Hobbes
“Something pretty…that’s just the surface. People worry so much about aging, but you look younger if you don’t worry about it.” – Jeanne Moreau
“You have to put off being young until you can retire.” – Author Unknown
“You’ve got to keep willing to have your own dreams come true.” – Leonard Nimoy
“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stopped laughing.” – Michael Pritchard
“Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.” – Bernard Baruch
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” – Robert Frost
“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” – Federico Fellini
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” – Albert Einstein
“Life is your artwork. Create it! No one else can do it for you. You create it by seeing life, and living it to its fullest.” – Max Ehrmann
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather
“Retirement: That’s when you return from work one day and say, ‘Hi, Honey, I’m home, forever.'” – Gene Perret
“Retire from work, but not from life.” – M.K. Soni
“To enjoy a long, comfortable retirement, save more today.” – Suze Orman
“Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did.” – Malcolm Forbes
“The best time to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does.” – Author Unknown
“Retirement may be an ending, a closing, but it is also a new beginning.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.” – Abe Lemons
“Retirement: Something arrived at in haste and lived at in leisure.” – Dave Erhard
“If you start thinking about retirement in six months’ time, you’re already there.” – Brian O’Driscoll
“Retirement is when the living is easy and the payments are hard.” – Anonymous
“When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income.” – Chi Chi Rodriguez
“Life begins at retirement.” – Unknown
“The goal of retirement is to live off your assets-not on them.” – Frank Eberhart
“Retirement from Job does not mean retirement from life! It is the beginning not an end!” – Ravi Samuel
“Retirement is having nothing to do and someone always keeping you from it.” – Robert Brault
“In retirement, every day is Boss Day and every day is Employee Appreciation Day.” – Terri Guillemets
“Retirement: It’s nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese.” – Gene Perret
“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
“I never stopped doing anything [when I retired], I stopped getting paid for it.” – Bill Chavanne
“Retirement itself is the best gift. No gold watch could ever top it.” – Abigail Charleson
“In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.” – Mason Cooley
“Retirement is a one-way trip to insignificance.” – Mason Cooley
“Retirement to me does not mean nothing to do but the realization of the decisions I made in the past. That I made in my life.” – Jack Bowman
“Retirement… is when you stop living at work and begin working at living.” – Unknown
“Retirement means doing whatever I want to do. It means choice.” – Dianne Nahirny
“Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to.” – Harry Emerson Fosdick
“Retirement is a great opportunity to become the person you have always wanted to be but have never been.” – Dave Erhard
“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Retirement is a time to look back with satisfaction, and a time to look ahead with anticipation. A time to fill each day with enjoyment. A very special time for you.” – Unknown
“Retirement is like a long vacation in Las Vegas. The goal is to enjoy it the fullest, but not so fully that you run out of money.” – Jonathan Clements
“The challenge of retirement is how to spend time without spending money.” – Unknown
“Retirement is wonderful if you have two essentials – much to live on and much to live for.” – Unknown
“Retirement: The time in your life when time is no longer money.” – Unknown
“I know exactly what I’m gonna do when I retire. Buy a beach bar. Surf all day, and margaritas ’till sun-up.” – Donald P. Bellisario
“Retiring and sailing around the world on my boat. We are living the dream.” – Will Ferrell
“Retirement is a time given to find God within yourself.” – Walter
“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi
“For retirement brings repose, and repose allows a kindly judgment of all things.” – John Sharp Williams
“Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth.” – Mason Cooley
“Retirement gives each of us another opportunity to smell the flowers. Once again, some of us will, and some of us won’t.” – Unknown
“Being retired and being out of the game are two very different things, my dear.” – Mitch Watson
“Retirement is built into our biology. It presents a challenge that we humans have been living with, one way or another, since the dawn of time: how do we support ourselves when we can no longer do so through our own labor?” – Michael P. Barry
“Retirement in this generation of boomers is an attitude rather than a chronological age.” – Patrick M. Kennedy
“I see retirement as an opportunity to reinvent oneself.” – Doreen Rosenthal
“The word ‘retire’ here, implies that you can leave one life for another.” – Doreen Rosenthal
“To some retirement feels like the end of one’s lifetime and the beginning of another.” – Mutea Rukwaru
“Describing retirement as a ‘promotion’ reminds us of the potential for this stage to be positive, active and full of challenges, whichever way it is defined.” – Doreen Rosenthal
“Retirement is a phase of life for which you will need to develop a new lifestyle and this requires advance planning.” – Mutea Rukwaru
“One thing does not improve with age and retirement: finances.” – Forest J. Bowman
“Only you can determine when you want to retire, where you want to retire, how much money you will need for retirement, and what you will do in retirement.” – Forest J. Bowman
“Others see retirement as a fresh opportunity to give more attention to intellectual, artistic, and creative pursuits.” – Bruce Bruinsma
“Still others see their retirement years as a chance to focus more on health, exercise and diet.” – Bruce Bruinsma
“Retirement can provide an opportunity for free time. Apart from eating and sleeping you may have as much as 98 hours each week to do whatever you choose.” – Mutea Rukwaru
“In a shack by the sea, I’ll sit back, sipping tea / Let my early retirement commence” – Howard Elliot Ashman
“Been working everyday since I was twenty / Haven’t got a thing to show / For anything I’ve done” – Dean Holloway
“Got a finish off that swimming pool / Get some umbrellas, don’t wanna be cool / Remember to take them fishing trips / You never had time for, this is it” – Steve Gene Wold
“But as with so many other issues, life in retirement can be much more complicated than life was before.” – Bruce Bruinsma
“We’re all going to retire. Barring bad luck or misfortune, we are all going to get old and, at some point, no longer be able to work. Or not want to work.” – Michael P. Barry
Funny Retirement Quotes
“Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it.” – Gene Perret
“The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.” – Abe Lemons
“When a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income.” – Chi Chi Rodriguez
“Retirement: It’s nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese.” – Gene Perret
“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
“When you retire, you switch bosses from the one who hired you to the one who married you.” – Gene Perret
“Retirement: World’s longest coffee break.” – Author Unknown
“In my retirement I go for a short swim at least once or twice every day. It’s either that or buy a new golf ball.” – Gene Perret
“Retirement means no pressure, no stress, no heartache… unless you play golf.” – Gene Perret
“I’m retired, not dead. I mean different. Okay, a little boring. But is being retired any more interesting?” – Luc Besson
Funny Retirement Messages
Congratulations on achieving the greatest accomplishment possible: no longer working here. Happy retirement!
Keep calm and golf on. Good luck!
Now that you’re retiring, there will be one less person to lean on for support, one less smile to light up the morning, one less email to add to “reply all.” You sure you gotta go? It’s not going to be the same without you.
Friends don’t let friends retire without a good bottle of wine. Here’s a toast to you!
When one door closes, another opens at a vacation resort. Enjoy an umbrella drink on us!
Here’s to endless weekends and zero Monday meetings! May your retirement be filled with naps, adventures, and absolutely no alarm clocks.
Remember, retirement is like a permanent vacation – except you’re not coming back to work on Monday. Lucky you!
Time to trade your business suits for swimsuits and your briefcase for a golf bag. Enjoy every moment!
Wishing you all the best as you trade deadlines for fishing lines and meetings for beach greetings.
Now that your office days are done, may your coffee breaks last until noon and your weekend never end. Congratulations!
Here’s to trading your keyboard for a paddleboard and your spreadsheets for beach sheets. May retirement bring you endless joy!
Goodbye tension, hello pension! Wishing you a retirement filled with relaxation and new adventures.
Looking forward to seeing all your vacation photos while we’re stuck here at work. Enjoy your well-deserved freedom!
Retirement checklist: Wake up whenever you feel like it. Relax over a latte. See the world. Read a book. Walk by the ocean. Spend time with loved ones. Repeat.
Remember all the times you said, “Not my problem”? Now it’s official. Happy retirement!
The myth, the legend, the employee of the century. Your legacy lives on! Congratulations.
Now that you’re retired, every night is Friday night. Enjoy the celebration and go make some noise!
Just think, no one from IT is ever going to ask if you rebooted your computer again. Enjoy every single minute of it.
Here’s hoping that the next chapter finds your toes in the sand, palm trees swaying in the wind and a whole lotta pickleball. Go get ‘em!
You’re leaving behind some pretty big shoes to fill. Looks like we’re going to have to go shopping.
You set the bar so high that none of us can even reach our drinks. How will we ever survive without you?
You’re a rockstar in our eyes. Good luck on the next leg of your tour!
