quotations about youth
Try to hold on to youth and it mocks you while it sprints away.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
There is a very prevalent tenet with youth, that good company is every thing desirable, and that bad is even better than none.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
The ship of youth crowds sail; but if the wind forsakes it, the canvas hangs motionless, awaiting a friendly breath; and too often illusions are summoned to its aid.
MME. SWETCHINE
The Writings of Madame Swetchine
The mirror of my youth will never lie.
BARBARA O'SULLIVAN
"The Mirror of My Youth", The Steel Mirror: Sonnets and Poems
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
ROBERT HERRICK
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
He whom the gods love dies young.
MENANDER
attributed, Day's Collacon
When you're young, you think you can handle anything. By the time you find out otherwise, it's already too late. You got a stocking wrapped around your neck.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance, Dance, Dance
We are young only once, after that we need some other excuse.
ANONYMOUS
Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.
ROB SHEFFIELD
Love is a Mix Tape
My salad days;
When I was green in judgment.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Antony and Cleopatra
All of us who are worth anything spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to John Gisborne, Nov. 16, 1819
Youth without beauty is half a prize.
G. WHITE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
The Rescue
Youth is only ever fun in retrospect.
SUNDARA KARMA
"Youth is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect"
Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth,
And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
The task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse to put up a vigorous front of their own, it leaves the entire situation in a mist.
JANE ADDAMS
The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House
Since time immemorial, youth has set the universal standard of physical beauty, and the reason is simply that a shapely firm young face and body are more attractive sexually and aesthetically than bulges, sags and wrinkles.
HUGH HEFNER
Playboy, Jan. 1974
Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For oh, it is not always May!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"It Is Not Always May"
Youth is often a scoffer at destiny.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
She does not simulate youth, and yet she is young. Her smile is as captivating as ever, her laugh as merry and as contagious; and though she can no longer romp with her juniors, she enjoys a vivacious game by proxy as much as she ever did in person, and teases with the same innocent and admirable coquetry. Age has quieted her body but not sobered her spirit. As the life of youth is still hers, so are all its interests. In truth, they have widened with the widening years. As her children have grown up and entered into their several professions, she has accompanied them. Whatever touches their life touches hers, whatever interests them interests her. If she cannot enter into their fields, she can at least come to the fence and look over. So, disavowing all professional knowledge, she is yet singularly intelligent in medicine, law, journalism, theology, and teaching. Her children, when they come home, find her always a ready pupil, and, often to their surprise, their intellectual comrade. Although infirmity begins to put its limitations on her activities, never did life seem to her to be so large, so varied, so full of ever-broadening interest. She occasionally brings out of the past sacred and stimulating memories. But she does not live in the past. She lives in her children, that is in the present, and in her grandchildren, that is in the future.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder