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People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can't know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do-after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world's anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.

William Faulkner#40

MoralityActionAgeYouth

About this quote

What does it mean?
People aged 20 to 40 act strongly without full moral understanding.
In plain terms
Young adults do things before they learn right from wrong.
What can you take from it?
Youthful energy often lacks moral guidance.

Where it applies

  • workplace dynamics
  • political leadership
  • family conflicts

Putting it to work

  • mentoring young adults
  • fostering reflection

Questions to consider

  • Can we teach morality early?
  • Does age bring wisdom?

Another view

It generalizes age groups too broadly.

More from William Faulkner

  1. If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, all of us.

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  2. No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himse…

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  3. If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous …

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