It is as natural and as right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly captured, as it is for old men to turn gray, or mothers to love their offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than their lives.

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocri…

All error, not merely verbal, is a strong way of stating that the current truth is incomplete. The follies of youth have a basis in sound reason, just as much …

But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruit…

They darted down and rose up like a wave Or buzzed impetuously as before; One would have thought the corpse was held a slave To living by the life it bore!

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.

In your teens and your 20s, you're immortal, you're untouchable. It's only later that you begin to realize you are mortal. (2004)