55 Funny Retirement Quotes That Will Make You Smile

Retirement is often viewed as the ultimate objective of a long career. As the largest career community for women, the Fairygodboss mission is to help women achieve their career goals. For many of our members,  a happy and financially secure retirement is an exciting finale to a long, meaningful career filled with years of hard work, and decades of professional and personal growth. 

Retirement can bring many changes, however. It’s not all relaxation and endless vacation for everyone. And big changes can naturally create some amount of trepidation. Retirement often means relocating and finding a new place to retire, or making other changes to your lifestyle or spending levels. However, the benefits of retirement are also enormous in terms of creating time and space to pursue things that you may have been dreaming about for a long time..

Whether you decide to slowly shift into retirement or make more abrupt changes, hopefully your co-workers and manager appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into your career. If you or your colleagues are looking for some light-hearted inspiration during a celebratory send-off, these funny retirement quotes might come in handy.  . 

After all, quotes about retiring can be depressing — even ones about finally taking a happy retirement. Too often, retirement sayings are odes to impending senility, jokes about leaving a bad job or, even worse, downright morbid. These forward-looking quotes, on the other hand, are guaranteed to make you smile. 

1. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” — A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

2. “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” — Fred Rogers

3. “What do you call a person who is happy on Monday? Retired.” — Unknown

4. “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

6. “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill

7. “You can’t retire from being great.” — Unknown

8. “I can’t wait to retire so I can get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and go drive around really slow and make everybody late for work.” — Unknown

9. “Some of the best memories are made in flip flops.” — Kellie Elmore

10. “When a man retires, his wife gets twice as much husband for half as much money.” — Chi Chi Rodriguez

12. “There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working.” — Robert Half

13. “Retirement: It’s nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese.” — Gene Perret

14. “In your retirement years never drink coffee at lunch; it will keep you aware in the afternoon.” — Unknown

15. “He who laughs last at the boss’s jokes probably isn’t far from retirement.” — Unknown

17. “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

18. “Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.” — George Burns

19. “Instead of saving for someone else's college education, I'm currently saving for a luxury retirement community replete with golf carts and handsome young male nurses who love butterscotch.” — Jen Kirkman

20. “I have never liked working. To me, a job is an invasion of privacy.” — Unknown

22. “Retirement: World’s longest coffee break.” — Unknown

23. “When you retire, you switch bosses – from the one who hired you to the one who married you.” — Unknown

24. “Spreading sheets sounds more appealing than a spreadsheet.” — Unknown

25. “My retirement plan is to get thrown into a minimum security prison in Hawaii.” — Julius Sharpe ‏

27. “People are always asking me when I'm going to retire. Why should I? I've got it two ways. I'm still making movies, and I'm a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half price.” — George Burns

28. “You are a person I really admire, because you are a person who gets to retire.” — Unknown

29. “When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch.” — R.C. Sherriff

30 “If you really want to annoy me, ask me when I’m going to retire from rock n’ roll.” — Bruce Dickinson

32. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis

33. “There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world. Because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.” – Zayn Malik

34. "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want." — Bill Watterson

35. . "As in all successful ventures, the foundation of a good retirement is planning." — Earl Nightingale

37. “The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.” — Abe Lemons

38. “Planning to retire? Before you do find your hidden passion, do the thing that you have always wanted to do.” — Catherine Pulsifer

39. “You have to put off being young until you can retire.” — Unknown

40. "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

42. "As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did." — Robert Benchley

43. “If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” — Doug Larson

44. “I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don’t know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.” — Dick Van Dyke

45. "There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” — Sophia Loren

47. “It is better to live rich than to die rich.” — Samuel Johnson

48. "Retirement: No Job, No Stress, No Pay!" — Unknown

49. “Retire from work, but not from life.” — M.K. Soni

50. "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

52.  “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Mark Twain

53. "Retirement: When you stop lying about your age and start lying around the house." — Unknown

54. "A lot of our friends complain about their retirement. We tell ’em to get a life." — Larry Laser

55. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” — Vince Lombardi

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This article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of Fairygodboss.

What’s your no. 1 piece of advice for anyone approaching retirement to successfully make the transition from a full-time job? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!