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Quotes

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.

—Theognis, c. 550 BC

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

—Herbert Hoover, 1936

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

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

—Jonathan Swift, 1706

I 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, 1813

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 BC

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

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

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.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, c. 1940

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

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

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924

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

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
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