Archive

Quotes

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.

—Mark Twain, 1876

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

—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688

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

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924

I 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

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.

—Theognis, c. 550 BC

The 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, 1964

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, 1881

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, 1968

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, 1976

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

—Jonathan Swift, 1706

The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.

—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747

Ah, there are no children nowadays.

—Molière, 1673
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