Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since... — Ronald Reagan

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

Author: Ronald Reagan

Insight: There's something clever happening here—Reagan quotes Jefferson in a way that's almost too perfect, especially since Reagan himself was the oldest president elected at that time. He's making a point that still resonates: we waste energy debating surface-level details when what actually matters is what someone accomplishes. It's a genuinely useful principle, whether you're evaluating a leader or a coworker or anyone in a position to make decisions. But there's a tension worth sitting with. While it's true that results matter most, age does sometimes correlate with things that affect performance—energy levels, technological fluency, health concerns, changing priorities. Reagan's quote doesn't mean age is completely irrelevant; it means age alone shouldn't be your entire judgment. The smarter move is to look at actual capability alongside age, not instead of it. Judge by works, yes, but don't pretend the context around those works doesn't exist. What makes this quote endure is that it cuts through lazy thinking in all directions. Don't dismiss someone for being young and inexperienced. Don't dismiss someone for being older either. Ask yourself: What have they actually done? What can they realistically accomplish? Those questions take more work than a simple number, but they're the only ones worth asking.