I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
—Hesiod (b.1493) Greek Poet, Economist
If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) English Novelist, Humorist, Writer
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Playwright, Artist
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
As youth lives in the future, so the adult lives in the past: No one rightly knows how to live in the present.
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872) Austrian Dramatist, Playwright
The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how far he is likely to go in the world. The popular notion is that a youth’s progress depends upon how he acts during his working hours. It doesn’t. It depends far more upon how he utilizes his leisure…. If he spends it in harmless idleness, he is likely to be kept on the payroll, but that will be about all. If he diligently utilizes his own time … to fit himself for more responsible duties, then the greater responsibilities-and greater rewards-are almost certain to come to him.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the happiness of life.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Youth is beautiful. Its friendship is precious. The intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained hardness of older life.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–67) American Poet, Playwright, Essayist
Youth ever thinks that good whose goodness or evil he sees not.
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
They mustn’t know my despair, I can’t let them see the wounds which they have caused, I couldn’t bear their sympathy and their kind-hearted jokes, it would only make me want to scream all the more. If I talk, everyone thinks I’m showing off; when I’m silent they think I’m ridiculous; rude if I answer, sly if I get a good idea, lazy if I’m tired, selfish if I eat a mouthful more than I should, stupid, cowardly, crafty, etc. etc.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
In youth we learn; in age we understand.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian Novelist
Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth.
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) American Playwright, Poet, Novelist
Youth is a crown of roses, old age is a crown of rosemary.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Prince Edward Island in a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its mighty tryst with the little land it loves. You find your soul then. You realize that youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian Novelist
When you are seventeen you aren’t really serious.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet
All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one’s youth.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Youth is wasted on the young.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough.
—Unknown
Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.
—V. S. Pritchett (1900–97) British Short Story Writer, Biographer, Memoirist, Literary Critic
Youth, abundant wealth, high birth, and inexperience, are, each of them a source of ruin. What then must be the fate of those in whom all four are combined.
—The Hitopadesha Indian Collection of Fables
Some are old in their youth, others young in their old age.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
It is a truth but too well known, that rashness attends youth, as prudence does old age.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
The self-conceit of the young is the great source of those dangers to which they are exposed.
—Hugh Blair (1718–1800) Scottish Preacher, Scholar, Critic
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
Alas! for one thing that goes and never returns. What is it? Youth.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
The young, whether they know it or not, live on borrowed property.
—Richard Livingstone (1880–1960) British Scholar, Educator, Academic
Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.
—Anne Bradstreet (1612–72) English Poet
Youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
The surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
In grade school, I was a complete geek. You know, there’s always the kid who’s too short, the kid who wears glasses, the kid who’s not athletic. Well, I was all three.
—Julianne Moore (b.1960) American Actor
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age — I missed it coming and going.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Socialist
On the neck of a young man sparkles no gem so gracious as enterprise.
—Hafez (1325–89) Persian Poet, Mystic
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher, Logician
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Now, on the road to freedom, I was pausing for a moment near Temuco and could hear the voice of the water that had taught me to sing.
—Pablo Neruda (1904–73) Chilean Poet, Diplomat, Political leader
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one.
—George Borrow (1803–81) English Novelist, Author
Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth — the careless sport, the pleasure and passion, the darling joy.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Like virgin parchment, capable of any inscription.
—Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English Dramatist
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to!
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author
Enjoy the spring of love and youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year’s nest.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Youth has no age.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.
—Midge Decter (b.1927) American Journalist, Activist, Author
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) American Head of State, Engineer, Businessperson, Humanitarian
Youth is wholly experimental.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
We can’t always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.
—Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French Painter, Sculptor, Lithographer
Happy is he who fears God when in the prime of life.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end, most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure, our less-than-ideal families—and even our politicians!
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Youth should be a savings bank.
—Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian Christian Mystic
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. It’s only the middle-aged who are really conscious of their limitations–that is why one should be so patient with them.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Christian Author, Poet, Minister
Affectation is certain deformity. — By forming themselves on fantastic models the young begin with being ridiculous, and often end in being vicious.
—Hugh Blair (1718–1800) Scottish Preacher, Scholar, Critic
I write of youth, of love, and have access by these to sing of cleanly wantonness.
—Catullus (84–54 BCE) Roman Latin Poet
Nobody understands anyone 18, including those who are 18.
—Jim Bishop (1907–87) American Journalist, Author
Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet
Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist