quotations about youth
Youth was the time for happiness, its only season; young people, leading a lazy, carefree life, partially occupied by scarcely absorbing studies, were able to devote themselves unlimitedly to the liberated exultation of their bodies. They could play, dance, love, and multiply their pleasures. They could leave a party, in the early hours of the morning, in the company of sexual partners they had chosen, and contemplate the dreary line of employees going to work. They were the salt of the earth, and everything was given to them, everything was permitted for them, everything was possible. Later on, having started a family, having entered the adult world, they would be introduced to worry, work, responsibility, and the difficulties of existence; they would have to pay taxes, submit themselves to administrative formalities while ceaselessly bearing witness--powerless and shame-filled--to the irreversible degradation of their own bodies, which would be slow at first, then increasingly rapid.
MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ
The Possibility of an Island
In the morning of life, before its wearisome journey,
The youthful soul doth expand, in the simple luxury of being;
It hath not contracted its wishes, nor set a limit on its hopes;
The wing of fancy is unclipped, and sin hath not seared the feelings:
Each feature is stamped with immortality, for all its desires are infinite,
And it seeketh an ocean of happiness, to fill the deep hollow within.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
When you see the way things deteriorate before your very eyes. Everything running down hill. It's kind of silly to even think about youth.
SAM SHEPARD
Buried Child
Youth is the ultimate limited resource.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden
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
He who has youth and health can attain to anything.
AGATHOCLES
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
There's no medicine for getting old and the antidote for youth is experience. But you cannot have a good experience unless you make some bad decisions.
ERROL D. ALEXANDER
The Rattling of the Chains
When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.
LOUISE ERDRICH
The Plague of Doves
It is the folly of youth to be too eager for manhood.
VON VIZIN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Tell me, why are the old friends kind,
And ever the tenderest, too?
Youth has no art, but an open mind,
And its love is sincere and true.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Tell Me"
The activity of the young is like that of railcars in motion--they tear along with noise and turmoil, and leave peace behind them. The quietest nooks, invaded by them, lose their quietude as they pass, and recover it only on their departure.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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
I too was young once--or I think so--see,
How the years slip like coins from open hands!
KENNETH RAND
"The Prodigal"
It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Rambler, Aug. 21, 1750
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
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
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
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"