Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

Landor’s aphorism maps the changing emotional and practical value of learning across a lifetime. As children, study can feel like an imposition—an externally enforced discipline that competes with play. In youth, it becomes “oil”: a lubricant for ambition and self-making, helping talent move smoothly into accomplishment. In adulthood, study is recast as an “indulgence,” suggesting voluntary, even luxurious intellectual pleasure amid responsibilities. Finally, in old age it serves as a “restorative,” offering mental stimulation, consolation, and continuity of identity when physical powers decline. The sequence argues that education is not a single phase but a lifelong resource whose meaning evolves with circumstance.