495 Youth Quotes

I begin with the young. We older ones are used up but my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men and boys! What material! With you and I, we can make a new world.

Most of the people who get sent to die in wars are young men who've got a lot of energy and would probably rather, in a better world, be putting that energy into copulation rather than going over there and blowing some other young man's guts out.

The young know how truly difficult and dreadful youth can be. Their youth is wasted on everyone else, that's the horror. The young have no authority, no respect.

When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with so excellent a disposition.

When the students are occupied, they're not juvenile delinquents. I believe that education is a capital investment.

Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might, perchance, a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right.

Dance on, dance on, we see, we see Youth goes, alack, and with it glee, A boy the old man ne'er can be; Maternal thirty scarce can find The sweet sixteen long left behind.

Faust, the Ninth Symphony, and the will of Adolf Hitler are eternal youth and know neither time nor transience.

From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it.

The street's alive as secret debts are paid, Contacts made, they vanished unseen. Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades Hustling for the record machine. The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands That face off against each other out in the street, down in Jungleland.

Oh roses for the flush of youth, And laurel for the perfect prime; But pluck an ivy branch for me Grown old before my time.

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.

Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot. Though it causes me frequent pain, I find it very easy to place myself in the shoes of almost any boy, and can conjure my own youth with an ease that is troublesome.

The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!

All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

Old age equalizes - we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.

I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority.

The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.

As boys without bonds to their fathers grow older and more desperate about their masculinity, they are in danger of forming gangs in which they strut their masculinity for one another, often overdo it, and sometimes turn to displays of fierce, macho bravado and even violence.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.

I wanted to talk to very young kids about self-image and about being different and how that can be your strength, especially from the immigrant perspective.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

I come fresh from the street, fast on my feet, kind a lean and lazy; not much meat on my bones, and a whole lot alone, and more than a little bit crazy. The old six string was all I had to keep my belly still, and for each full hour lesson I gave I got a crisp ten dollar bill.

There are lessons to life That the lovers got to learn There are corners out there You know they're waitin' somewhere And you've got to be prepared to turn There are callouses that come That the lovers got to earn In the years of your youth You can't be fire proof You know you've got to get burned.

Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.

The massive, frustrated energies of a mainly young, disillusioned electorate that has long since abandoned the idea that we all have a duty to vote. This is like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, but you have to choose immediately between a Ford and a Chevy.

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

Teens are always shown as one dimensional. They're stereotyped. When I was in high school, I cared about more than getting a date or making the team.

Sister, look ye, How, by a new creation of my tailor's I've shook off old mortality.

Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile.

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamaties which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.

Now the faith is old and the Devil bold Exceedingly bold indeed. And the masses of doubt that are floating about Would smother a mortal creed. But we that sit in a sturdy youth And still can drink strong ale Let us put it away to infallible truth That always shall prevail. And thank the Lord For the temporal sword And howling heretics too. And all good things Our Christendom brings But especially barley brew!

Kings live in Palaces, and Pigs in sties, And youth in Expectation. Youth is wise.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees. 'Do you believe?' he cried.

Don't for a moment believe He was killing the young; He was costuming angels.

The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

I met a young man of nineteen or twenty, who at that time vibrated with all the youth of the world. This was Jean Cocteau, then a passionately imaginative youth to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundations of the Heavenly City.

Age is a sicknesse, and Youth is an ambush.

Youth's the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.

No young American should be held hostage to America's dependence on oil.

They're cheering a young lad, the champion playboy of the Western World.

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)

The thing is, he came with his guitar to the club. You could cut me open and vomit in my chest because that kid... what a beautiful thing that he shows up with his girl on one arm and his guitar on the other. He came to play and he didn't think he was going to die - nobody thinks they're gonna die. He wanted to have a good time. It's dangerous. But that's the thing that breaks my heart, first that he died, but also that he showed up with his guitar, you know? That's not an unhappy kid. (1995)

What a waste. What a waste of a talented, beautiful guy. Obviously, whatever 'it' is, he had it. He was luminous - a brilliant guy with great taste. But on the other side of that, he was a kid, and that can be a dangerous thing to be, especially in that world, being in that position. I was very lucky I pulled out of it, but River - he didn't get out. There was so much ahead for him. Like the beauty and the luxury of making a family. (2003)

If you haven't made some mistakes by 28, it's abnormal.

The youth of America are rolling up their sleeves, digging their hands in the dough, and making it rise with the sweat of their brows. They realize that there is too much imitation, and that creation holds the key to salvation. 'Create' is the password of this generation. The wine is made from plantain, but even if it turns sour, it is our own wine! That a country's form of government must be in keeping with its natural elements is a foregone conclusion. Absolute ideas must take relative forms if they are not to fail because of an error in form. Freedom, to be viable, has to be sincere and complete. If a republic refuses to open its arms to all, and move ahead with all, it dies.

A decade ago young people en masse began declaring themselves as Yugoslavs. It was a form of rising Yugoslav nationalism, which was a reaction to brotherhood and unity and a feeling of belonging to a single socialist self-managing society. This pleased me a lot.

'I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.'

John F. Kennedy's death was as personal a body blow to most of the nation's young people. Why? It seems to me that the answer is simple: He was the symbol of the new gernation grasping the tiller of the ship of state for the first time, and finding it exhilarating, exciting, challenging. He knew that there is an element of danger in accepting a challenge - in taking a risk that is beyond what is expected of you, beyond what you may expect of yourself.

Thank you for your very detailed letter regarding Scientology. We haven't yet found a way to attack these jackals who feed on children and young adults who are too emotionally weak to stand by themselves when they reach the age of consent. It's too bad there isn't a 20th Century Charles Dickens to write about the terrible destruction of these 20th Century fagins who make themselves rich while they destroy the psyche of so many. At the present time, I can only encourage you to do more of what you have been doing.

Few are the women and maidens who would let themselves think that one could at the same time be joyous and modest. They are all bold and coarse in their speech, in their demeanor wild and lewd. That is now the fashion of being in good cheer. But it is specially evil that the young maiden folk are exceedingly bold of speech and bearing, and curse like troopers, to say nothing of their shameful words and scandalous coarse sayings, which one always hears and learns from another.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

Young people, I happen to believe, are the world's most precious natural resource.

I hated Kerner, and one day I met him and we became friends. He was young and gloriously melancholy because his spirits were so high and life had so much in store for him. Yes, he was almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair.

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.

When you're young, you're stupid. You do silly things. I did it (the O-Z-Z-Y tattoo across his knuckles) when I was 14. I was in jail for something. I could have had it removed, but why? It's my trademark. People stop me and say, 'Let me have a look at your hand.'

El camino de la juventud lleva toda una vida.

Hace falta mucho, mucho tiempo para ser joven.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and so they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.

Youth flies away and never comes back.

Youth is our real treasure; all the rest of our years are winter.

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this problem by defying their elders and copying each other.

The little blonde at the PBX cocked a shell-like ear and smiled a small fluffy smile. She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don't care much about kittens.

Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.

Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs - sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes - but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?)

Why hast thou nothing in thy face? Thou idol of the human race, Thou tyrant of the human heart, The flower of lovely youth that art.

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

Youth is wholly experimental.

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 incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

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.

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 as the embarrassing questions put by babes and sucklings. Their most antisocial acts indicate the defects of our society. When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory.

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

It is said we go about the world waging war to promote peace, and yet the price paid is rarely weighed against the failed efforts to make the world a better place. Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense. What right does anyone have to sacrifice the lives of others for some cause of questionable value? Even if well motivated it can't justify using force on uninterested persons. It's said that the 18 year old owes it to his country. Hogwash! It just as easily could be argued that a 50 year-old chickenhawk, who promotes war and places the danger on innocent young people, owes a heck of a lot more to the country than the 18 year-old being denied his liberty for a cause that has no justification.

I have been reading about the problems of youth. You know, with all the criticism that was levelled at von Schirach and his Hitler Jugend, it is forgotten that he did a fantastic thing with Germany's young. He kept them busy, he kept them out of trouble. In those years we did not have to concern ourselves with the worry of youths taking drugs, getting involved in crime, and sexual permissiveness. We did not have burning of national flags and draft cards. We had a healthy youth with healthy minds, all pulling together to build a nation. That is what we need today. We need to get them back on the right track.

I hear the music of youth on the warden's radio. Somehow I cannot reconcile this with good music. However it is one form of protest. The youth of today are protesting for many reasons and they want to be heard. One way of being heard is through their music. I do enjoy The Beatles however; their music has a definite beat and in many ways their music is good music.

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

'There is none like to me !' says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill; But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

Early in life, most of us probably observe an unhappy relationship between labor and wealth - to wit, the heavier the labor, the less the wealth. The man doing heavy manual work makes less than the man who makes a machine work for him, and this man makes less than the man sitting at a desk. The really rich people, the kind who go around on yachts and collect old books and new wives, do no labor at all. The economic reasons for dividing the money this way are clear enough. One, it has always been done that way; and two, it's too hard to change at this late date. But the puzzling question is why, since the money is parceled out on this principle, young people are constantly being pummeled to take up a life of labor. In any sensible world, the young would be told they could labor if they wanted to, but warned that if they did so it would cost them.

I try to catch at many a tune Like petals of light fallen from the moon, Broken and bright on a dark lagoon, But they float away - for who can hold Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs.

We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. They are a hundred times better educated than their grandparents, and ten times more sophisticated. There has never been such an open-minded group. The problem is that no one is giving them anything fresh. They've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.

You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.