I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

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.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

The young man must store up, the old man must use.

Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.

Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.

Ah, there are no children nowadays.

The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.