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
The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.
—Margaret Atwood, 1976Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936There 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, 1876Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BCChildhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860Rejoice, 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 BCBright youth passes as quickly as thought.
—Theognis, c. 550 BCNo one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330