Youth 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, 1881Quotes
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706The 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, 1964The young man must store up, the old man must use.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 63Rejoice, 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 BCChildhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.
—Jane Austen, 1816I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
—Mark Twain, 1876