quotations about youth
The youth do not see the old. They are not programmed to see the old, who are cancelled, negated, wiped out.
DORIS LESSING
Shikasta
Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them -- the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
W. H. AUDEN
"One of the Family", Forewords and Afterwords
The days of my youth I remember as nearly always in need of explanation, and not as much fun as advertised in the promotions for board games and breakfast cereal.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Fortune's Child", Lapham's Quarterly: Youth
If your youth has come and gone and old age is coming on, and your body bends beneath despair. Take your burden to the cross and leave it there.
GARY QUARLES
Inspirational Poems of God's Love and Guidance
Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Youth and Age", Essays; or Counsels Civil and Moral
Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The youth is always going to decide the future.
BENJI MADDEN
"Benji Madden on Good Charlotte's Comeback, Cameron Diaz and Society's Celebrity Obsession", Newsweek, July 15, 2016
When I was young my heart was young then, too.
And anything that it would tell me, that's the thing that I would do.
ANNE MURRAY
"Snowbird"
It is the folly of youth to be too eager for manhood.
VON VIZIN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Imprudent restrictions often force youth farther than enticement would carry them; and careless limitation is frequently worse than no injunction.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Youth And Age", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
After all, life hasn't much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
letter to his cousin Cici
YOUTH is the springtime of life, the seed and budding season of our existence, when the garden of our soul should be stocked, so that in the after-years it will adorn and gild our lives, and carry us in manly vigor as our onward journey we take, through the many and dangerous roads of this life. If our youth has been a season of sowing and planting good seed, our walk through this world will be one of comparative ease, with strong faith and unswerving straightness, and we carry on over every obstacle and through every trial, implicitly trusting and ever believing. On the other hand, if our youth has been neglected, and the soil untouched and uncultivated, most likely tares and foul weeds have got root in our souls, and it is late in life, if ever they be eradicated. Again, if in youth we have been taught to cling to the Rock of Ages, as years roll on our grasp becomes the firmer, till at the close of mortal life we step with surety and with joy on the glorious and ever happy high land of immortality.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Youth", Short Essays
I too was young once--or I think so--see,
How the years slip like coins from open hands!
KENNETH RAND
"The Prodigal"
Youth is the season of hope, enterprise, and energy, to a nation as well as an individual.
WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exist for his sake.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
attributed, Great Quotes for Great Educators
We are only midway through the central verse of our youth when we see ourselves begin to blacken.... We had been seduced into thinking that we were immortal and suddenly the affair is over.
ANNE CARSON
Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
preface, The Snow-Image
One spring of youth have we. When that is o'er,
And summer's fleeting dream, then, dear my friends,
Our autumn days run on to wintry ends,
Whose breath is chill. Lo, Age is at the door!
CLARA MARCELLE FARRAR GREENE
"Wine On the Lees"
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Palingenesis"