Youth Quotes
Shakespeare leads, then Byron, Longfellow, Charles Sheffield and Randolph Bourne. For sourced lines, Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary (1911) defines youth as the period of possibility. Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists (1903) has youth forgiven everything and forgiving itself nothing, age forgiving itself everything and forgiven nothing.
The two famous complaints about the young are both flagged. “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority” is credited to Socrates and marked misattributed. The notes quote a reference book of 1989 saying the quotation is spurious and mention that similar sentiments occur in Aristophanes’ The Clouds. The one credited to Hesiod, about having no hope for the future of our people, is disputed.
Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.
The greatest part of mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable.
Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
He that is more than a youth, is not for me, and he that is less than man, I am not for him.
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!
For the more paart, youthe is rebel,
Un-to reson & hatith her doctryne.
The spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins betimes.
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.