quotations about youth
There may be no fool like an old fool, but our observation has been that the young fool runs him a pretty close second.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
Every thing is pretty that is young.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Of Human Bondage
Our faults are apt to assume giant and exaggerated forms to our eyes in youth.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
Lodore
The sport of youth is the terror of age.
ZORZI
attributed, Day's Collacon
It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
2010: Odyssey Two
Youth yearns to youth, full blood loves full blood only.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
Youth, enthusiasm, and tenderness, are like the days of spring; instead of complaining of their brevity try to enjoy them.
RUCKERT
attributed, Treasury of Thought: Forming an Encyclopedia of Quotations from Ancient and Modern Authors
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
Youth must be wanton, youth must be quick,
Dance to the candle while lasteth the wick.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU
The Difficulty of Being
Youth as glimpsed by its elders is a story that comes from afar, showing itself as either lovely to look at or a torment to endure.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Fortune's Child", Lapham's Quarterly: Youth
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
There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Celephaïs"
The young are always in extremes.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
Lodore
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
In youth alone, unhappy mortals live;
But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive:
Discolour'd sickness, anxious labour, come,
And age, and death's inexorable doom.
VIRGIL
Georgics
Youth that is so highly prized passes quickly like a dream; sad and wrinkled old age forthwith impends over our head.
MIMNERMUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage