There 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, 1876Quotes
No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.
—Bessie Smith, 1926No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706Youth 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, 1881I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.
—Margaret Atwood, 1976I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
—Lord Byron, 1813The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato, c. 348 BCBlessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936Rejoice, 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, 1947I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924