quotations about youth
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
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
In youth, prepare for manhood.
L. MURRAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
It must be a very weary day to the youth when he first discovers that, after all, he will only become a man.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Youth yearns to youth, full blood loves full blood only.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
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
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 is not like a new garment which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly; youth, while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast wear away.
JOHN FOSTER
John Foster: Life and Thoughts
It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
2010: Odyssey Two
A youth, like a tree, needs pruning.
WIGGINS
attributed, Day's Collacon
To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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
The sport of youth is the terror of age.
ZORZI
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
Ethel Churchill: or, The Two Brides
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
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
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