quotations about 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"
Youth must be wanton, youth must be quick,
Dance to the candle while lasteth the wick.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
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
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
Youth yearns to youth, full blood loves full blood only.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
Youth is the ultimate limited resource.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden
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
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
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"
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
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
How much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
letter to his family, Oct. 18, 1918
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
The sport of youth is the terror of age.
ZORZI
attributed, Day's Collacon
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
ANONYMOUS
The young are always in extremes.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
Lodore
Tell me, why are the old friends kind,
And ever the tenderest, too?
Youth has no art, but an open mind,
And its love is sincere and true.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Tell Me"
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU
The Difficulty of Being