No wise man ever wished to be younger.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

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.

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.

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.

A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.

Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

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

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.

Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.