quotations about youth
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
Youth isn't wasted on, or reserved for, the young.
JULIAN KIMBLE
"At Trillectro, youth is not wasted", Washington Post, August 28, 2016
Our faults are apt to assume giant and exaggerated forms to our eyes in youth.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
Lodore
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
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
For youth, everything is sport.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
attributed, Day's Collacon
The category of youth is the product of innumerable forms of assessment, intervention and normalisation, as well as the vehicle for achieving a range of social and governmental objectives. In addition, youth is not a singular entity, but rather an entire range of sub-categories: the 'delinquent' youth, the 'subcultural' youth, the 'at-risk' youth.
GORDON TAIT
Making Sense of Mass Education
Youth is when you are supposed to question who you are and what you believe, when the values and personhood given to you by your society and family are subject to critical examination so that you can redefine your own being.
JOE MARIANI
"On snow and God and Swarthmore", Swarthmore Phoenix, March 16, 2017
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"
The sport of youth is the terror of age.
ZORZI
attributed, Day's Collacon
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 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
O happy childhood! blessed youth!
But once we know thy potent power;
But once we live all careless free;
No cross to mar our love-lit bower.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Heart-Yearnings"
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
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
ANONYMOUS
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"
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
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
Kings live in Palaces, and Pigs in sties,
And youth in Expectation. Youth is wise.
HILAIRE BELLOC
"Habitations", Sonnets and Verses