Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Quotes: Youth.

Youth
JFK wanted to create urban and suburban environments in which young people could grow up with a purpose in life and belief that society was rational.
Youth 607 But the President’s particular concern was how to turn the urban and suburban communities, so often chaotic and demoralized, into places where young people could grow up with a sense of purpose in their lives and a belief in the rationality of their society. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Children brought up to believe that all childhood should be fun.
Youth 209 …an American girl of fifteen who had been brought up on the basis that childhood was intended to be all fun…. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

His regret was for the loss of his youth.
Youth 224 …but Dick’s lungs burst for a moment with regret for Abe’s death, and his own youth of ten years ago. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

When old people tell you can’t do something, try it and you will find that you can.
Youth 329 What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Thoreau, Walden.

Youth is a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful.
Youth 368 Youth: A chaos of the mind and body—a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight—a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, in Eternity—an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects—a heart to ache or swell—a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

The easiest sacrifice is the sacrifice of one’s life; but the sacrifice of five or six years to intense study is too difficult for most youths.
Youth 28 Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply ten-fold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal—such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Schoolboys as individuals are great; as a group they are merciless.
Youth 186 Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Youth is a savage.
Youth 129 I was young and hence a savage. Mencken, Minority Report.

Mature people are unable to pass on the lessons they have learned to youth and that is good because youth will remain idealistic and try to create.
Youth xviii Maturity cannot really pass on the lessons of its experience to youth; that is nature’s secret way of preserving the idealism of youth, as a source spring of human creativity through trial and error. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

While they looked foolish to others, the youths felt that they were looked at with admiration.
Youth 500 Lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration. Dickens, Pickwick.

JFK had youthful vitality in contrast to the pessimism of older leaders.
Youth and age 653 …the contrast between his youthful vitality and the weary pessimism of most older leaders. Sorenson, Kennedy

The stages of life and the cares and griefs crowded into those stages.
Youth and age 597 They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and have great-grand children besides; their bodies are bent, their hair is gray, their step tottering and infirm…the lightsome pair whose wedding was so merry…the young couple indeed [have] grown old so soon…the rusting link that feebly joins the [old time and the new time], and is silently loosening its hold and dropping asunder…seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares and griefs are crowded into the intervening time…. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

The serenity of age compared to the riotous behavior of youth.
Youth and age 263 The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Lincoln consoles a young girl who lost her father in the war: it is bitterer for you because you are young, while the older expect it to happen.
Youth and Age 242 Lincoln in a letter to a young girl who lost her father in the war: In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares; the older have learned to expect it. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Young men should invent and execute new projects rather than judge or counsel or maintain a settled business.
Youth and Age 116 F. Bacon: Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.... Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

The old are satisfied with a modicum of success.
Youth and Age 116 F. Bacon: Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

Young people want to be like everyone else, but the old know the advantages of being a little bit different.
Youth and age 429 "In these days the young folks is all copy-cats, 'fraid to death they won't be all just alike; as for the old folks, they pray for the advantage o' bein' a little different." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Now that I’m old, I can see what I couldn’t when I was young.
Youth and age 433 "I see it all now as I couldn't when I was young." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Contrast between the old captain waiting for death and the young girl waiting to begin her war with the world.
Youth and age 257 The poor old captain waiting to be released, stranded on the inhospitable shore of this world, and eager Nan, who was sorrowfully longing for the world’s war to begin. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Men are socialists at twenty and conservatives at forty.
Youth and age 53 Sevareid’s father: “If a man isn’t a socialist at twenty and a conservative at forty, there’s something wrong with him.” Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

The young are insolent, arrogant and exult in youth as opposed to the despondence and self-pity of the old; they therefore are antagonistic toward each other.
Youth and age 461 But though every old man has been young, and every young one hopes to be old, there seems to be a most natural misunderstanding between these two stages of life…[arising] from the insolent arrogance or exultation in youth and the irrational despondence or self-pity in age. Steele, 8/25/1711. The Spectator.

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