The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968Quotes
No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.
—Bessie Smith, 1926Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924Rejoice, 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, 1947A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.
—Jane Austen, 1816Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936The 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, 1964I 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, 1813A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BCEven members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato, c. 348 BC