No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706Quotes
Rejoice, 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 BCThe thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860Even 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 BCChildhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747Youth 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, 1881There 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, 1876Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, c. 1940