Quotes about youth and age
25 passages from classic authors that speak of youth and age, for example by Hans Christian Andersen, Jean Paul and Victor Hugo.
We kept the passages whose text touches on the theme, starting with those where it comes up most. Each is given word for word, with its author, its work and the reference of the passage. To browse an author’s quotes, follow the name.
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“There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!”
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“Who could resist sitting down on such a beautiful carpet? and then the young children of Spring seated themselves, holding each other’s hands, and sang, and laughed, and grew.”
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“A man whom grown-up people love, children love still more.”
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“Mothers often love best that child which has caused them the most suffering.”
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“Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself.”
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“"Rejoice in our presence!" said the Air and the Sunlight. "Rejoice in thy own fresh youth!"”
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“Children are neither for the past nor the future, but enjoy the present, which we rarely do.”
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“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth”
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“The Child is father of the Man; / And I could wish my days to be / Bound each to each by natural piety.”
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“The lisping of a human soul from the lips of childhood may well be called the most sublime of earthly songs.”
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“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
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“How do you like to go up in a swing, / Up in the air so blue? / Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing / Ever a child can do!”
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“The air is pure and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue, what more could one possibly wish for?”
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“Truly, were I every evening to depict sunrise, and every morning to see it, still I should cry, like the children, Once more, once more!”
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“They felt very happy; the sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.”
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“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.”
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“And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.”
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“I care not to haunt the mouldy stillness, for I go in search of everlasting youth; I throw away all that is not one with my life nor as light as my laughter.”
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“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.”
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“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home.”
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“In young men, indeed, a little confusion and disarrangement is all well enough: but in age, when business is unseasonable, and ambition indecent, all should be composed and uniform.”
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“Happy, happy, never-returning time of childhood! How can we help loving and dwelling upon its recollections? They cheer and elevate the soul, and become to one a source of higher joys.”
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“If aged and life-weary men have called to their neighbors, Think of dying! we younger and life-loving men may well keep encouraging and reminding one another with the cheerful words, Think of wandering!”
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“The splendours of the East, the marvels of the Tropics, taken together, are not worth the first violet of Easter, the first song of April, the blossom of the hawthorn, the glee of the young girl who resumes her robes of white.”
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“The great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation, character, expression of opinion. Of these old age is not only not deprived, but, as a rule, has them in a greater degree.”