You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

Quote Investigator traces the wording to Les Brown’s Live Your Dreams (1992), p. 75, and a Lewis credit to The Anniston Star on 11 November 2006. Those publications were not inspected here: the trail explicitly records secondary evidence. Quote Investigator also reports William O’Flaherty’s rejection of the Lewis credit; his page could not be read here (HTTP 406). Brown is the earliest documented writer found, not a proven inventor. The atlas holds no Lewis source texts; this run does not claim an exhaustive search of his writings.

1. 1992Earliest found · credited to Les BrownBrown prints the maxim in a section encouraging older readers to remain ambitious.Les Brown, Live Your Dreams (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1992), chapter 3, ‘The Power To Change’, section ‘Never Too Old to Be Bold’, p. 75. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 1 January 1993Spread · credited to Les BrownA newspaper review reprints a slightly changed form and credits Brown.Robyn-Denise Yourse, ‘Book gives strategies for turning life around’, North Hills News Record (North Hills, Pennsylvania), 1 January 1993, p. A10, column 1. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 11 November 2006Credited to C. S. LewisA quotation list accompanying an Anniston Star article attributes the maxim to Lewis.‘C. S. Lewis Quotes’, accompanying Brett Buckner, ‘Apostle of the Imagination’, The Anniston Star (Anniston, Alabama), 11 November 2006, p. 3D, column 1; article begins p. 1D. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

This motivational maxim circulates under Lewis’s name. The documented alternative is Les Brown’s book Live Your Dreams, in a section encouraging older readers to continue setting goals. The Lewis credit appears in a much later newspaper quotation list, rather than in an identified Lewis publication.

Age need not put an end to ambition, imagination or new beginnings.

Life, Dreams, Time, Change, Wisdom

• The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. (not found) Mark Twain
• Be the change you wish to see in the world. (misattributed) Mahatma Gandhi
• You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book & read to a child. (misattributed) Dr. Seuss
• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (misattributed) Mark Twain
• Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. (misattributed) Ralph Waldo Emerson

• quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/08/new-dream
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis#Misattributed

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” Attributed to C. S. Lewis. No. The wording is documented in Les Brown’s 1992 book; no primary source in C. S. Lewis has been established. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/never-too-old-to-set-another-goal/ (checked 22 October 2026).

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