The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato, c. 348 BCQuotes
I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 200 BCThe thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.
—Theognis, c. 550 BCYouth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
—Donald Barthelme, 1964Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870