The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

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

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.

Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.

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.

A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.

No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.

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.

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

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

Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children. 

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.