quotations about youth
Like the withered roses of a once gay garland, the feelings of youth command in age a melancholy interest.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I remember what it was ... to be young, very young. When everything, touching and tasting--everything--was so new, and even suffering was wonderful because it was so complete.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
Heh? Eh? Our youth is dead.
From the minute we discover it with eyes closed
Advancing into mountain light.
Ouch.
JOHN ASHBERY
"Our Youth Is Dead", The Tennis Court Oath: A Book of Poems
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Time ever mocks all youthful hopes;
He laughs at ever plan youth makes;
He buries fame and honor deep
In grave of hope--too late youth wakes.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Time's Ravages"
This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY
speech at University of Cape Town, South Africa, Jun. 6, 1966
O Youth! flame earnest, still aspire,
With energies immortal!
To many a heaven of Desire,
Our yearning opes a portal!
And tho' Age wearies by the way,
And hearts break in the furrow,
We'll sow the golden grain Today--
The Harvest comes tomorrow.
GERALD MASSEY
"Today and Tomorrow"
It is the way of youth that each fresh piece of knowledge of life should go to its head, and that once uplifted by an emotion it can never have enough of it.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Beware of Pity
For youth, everything is sport.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
attributed, Day's Collacon
A country that betrays its youth is not going to survive.
DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH
"How government policy disfavors the young", MPR News, March 14, 2017
Youth yearns to youth, full blood loves full blood only.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
There is in youth a purity of character which, when once touched and defiled, can never be restored; a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, can never be re-embroidered.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
In our spring-time every day has its hidden growths in the mind, as it has in the earth when the little folded blades are getting ready to pierce the ground.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.
SARAH ADDISON ALLEN
The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Youth isn't wasted on, or reserved for, the young.
JULIAN KIMBLE
"At Trillectro, youth is not wasted", Washington Post, August 28, 2016
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough.
LORD CHESTERFIELD
attributed, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's?
ALFRED TENNYSON
Locksley Hall
It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
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
Youth is the ultimate limited resource.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden