I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.
—Margaret Atwood, 1976Quotes
The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Childhood 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 BCThe thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BCYouth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924I 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 sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.
—Jane Austen, 1816I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959