Until one is forty eating is more advantageous than drinking. After that age the rule is reversed.
Ibid., fol. 152, col. 1.
The Rabbis have taught that during the forty years in which Simeon the Just officiated in the Temple the lot always fell on the right (see Lev. xvi. 8-10). After that time it sometimes fell on the right and sometimes on the left. The crimson band also, which in his time had always turned white, after that period sometimes turned white, and at others it did not change color at all.
Yoma, fol. 39, col. 1.
The Rabbis have taught:—Forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot did not fall on the right, and the crimson band did not turn white; the light in the west did not burn, and the gates of the Temple opened of themselves, so that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zacchai rebuked them, and said, "O Temple! Temple! why art thou dismayed? I know thy end will be that thou shalt be destroyed, for Zachariah the son of Iddo has already predicted respecting thee (Zech. xi. i), 'Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.'"
Ibid., fol. 39, col. 2.
During the forty years that Israel were in the wilderness there was not a midnight in which the north wind did not blow.
Yevamoth, fol. 71, col. 1.
Rabbi Zadok fasted forty years that Jerusalem might not be destroyed, and so emaciated was he, that when he ate anything it might be seen going down his throat.
Gittin, fol. 56, col. 1.