Young People

“ How many young people are in this state! Upon them have been deposited, like a sort of mold, the traces of our decrepitude, our skepticism, our vices, and the bad habits they have contracted in our company. What reflections upon ourselves these youths weary of life force us to make! ”

“ A new generation up there? Listen to what their young people answer for themselves: “We want a [222] good time!” And their books? The books and the youth together make the future. And what do the books say? Exactly the same as the youth: “Let us have a good time! Ours are the light and the lust of life, its colors and its joys!” That’s what the youth and their books say.—They are right! It is all theirs! There is no law to prevent their taking life’s sunlight and joy away from the poor people. ”

“ A propos of the young people, that is our other danger; the young people are eating us up,—there is nothing in America but the young people. The country is made for the rising generation; life is arranged for them ”

“ Young people, especially, because they are young, [pg 497] colour the assemblage of persons and things which they encounter with the freshness and grace of their own springtide, look for all good from the reflection of their own hopefulness, and worship what they have created. ”

“ In fact, I know some novels which young people might read, and also some which they ought to read; but I believe I could count them all on the fingers of my two hands. Let young people study life from life, listen to the experience of those who have lived, frequent people who have found happiness and met with success in life. This will much better make them serve their apprenticeship. ”

“ Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that she could not part with it—never realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with it—and took for her more chosen associates young people. ”

“ In return for all they give, teens need our understanding, compassion, and love. They require our attention, and they deserve our respect. America's young people have so much to look forward to, so much to share with our world. ”

“ Even where young people have reached the mature age of nineteen or twenty, and are regularly entered freshmen or sophomores, it is just possible that more wisdom can be found somewhere as to what is best for their intellectual growth and training, than is discoverable in their own individual preferences. ”

“ In putting together the brief life stories and incidents from great lives which make up the pages of this little volume, the writer's object has been to show young people that, no matter how humble their birth or circumstances, they may make lives that will be held up as examples to future generations, even as these stories show how boys, handicapped by poverty and the most discouraging surroundings, yet succeeded so that they are held up as models to the boys of to-day. ”

“ There is also an ever-renewing social group for whom a time of troubles presents a challenge and an opportunity--the young people of the on-coming generation.
Adults are generally conditioned and shaped by the social situation into which they were born and in which they matured. Young people are passing through the conditioning process. ”

“ But when people are young—"
"Oh, when people are young!" He said this in despair. Then he went on in an audible muse. "When people are young they are not only in their own youth; they are in the youth of the [Pg 231] world, the race. ”

“ These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here. ”

“ Above all things, let my imaginary pupil have preserved the freshness and vigour of youth in his mind as well as his body. The educational abomination of desolation of the present day is the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure by incessant competitive examinations. ”

“ Confronted with challenges the likes of which their parents could scarcely have imagined, many of our young people are too busy with the trials of daily life to spend much time hoping and dreaming. But empowered with the courage to try, all teens-even those who may feel troubled and lost-have the potential to succeed. ”

“ For the young people could not talk. And why should they? Shout, embrace, swing, be up at dawn; ”

“ It attracts the attention of the young people—that is, I mean all under a hundred years old—elevates their feelings, and is calculated to induce reflections and thoughts of a life that is useful; and they will think, when are we going to have another meeting? ”

“ but only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of mind, which teaches young people how to begin to think. ”

“ The choices teens make today will determine the future for all of us, and we must strive to set an example of hard work and responsible behavior. On the occasion of National Good Teen Day, we pause to recognize the teens who set just such an example for their peers-young people who make invaluable contributions to our society, bringing their remarkable talents and energies to bear in their studies and activities, in caring for their families and friends, and in helping their communities. ”

“ The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of bringing them up to the Stage. ”

“ There are also among the young people some choice minds, who desire to elevate the intellectual and moral level of their country and who seek to do so by published articles, by lectures, by literary clubs, and by new schools. ”

“ He will have constant opportunities of being in company with very ingenious people, whose thoughts and conversation turn upon literary subjects. In such society, a young man will feel the necessity of some degree of study. ”

“ The youth, the middle-aged and the old improving in letters, in mechanism and in the arts and sciences. We bring them {380} here to improve them, and if the Lord will bless us sufficiently, and the people will bless themselves, we will have a nation that understands all things pertaining to the earth that it is possible for man to grasp. ”

“ These are the stories of brave boys and girls, the youngest five, the eldest only fifteen, born some in Europe and some in America, some city bred and delicately reared, others the children of farmers and rude laborers. ”

“ Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing. ”

“ So far as we have had opportunity to observe, and can learn from the representations of others, the young men have generally made a faithful use of their opportunities, and have made good progress in the studies assigned to them, and in the knowledge of the language, ideas, arts and institutions of the people of this country. ”

“ Each boat has a little lamp at the prow, and in the soft yellow light that twinkles above the polished surface of the stream, you can catch glimpses of the black-haired, dark-skinned women busy with the vending of their merchandise, and all the time laughing and chattering with the glee of a carefree people. ”

“ These two strange people of a strange blood that had emerged from the racially unknown thousands of years before, of a people that, defeated but never conquered, had for generation upon generation hugged the birth-soil of the Pyrenees, were touched with elemental fears and faiths almost as ancient as the Aryan camp-fires from which the races of the world took their departure before history found a tongue. ”

“ At sunset the details of the structure of the pagodas of Wat Chang are lost, but the mass of spires and pinnacles takes on a purple tint which changes to one of dusky hue as the light fades slowly from the sky. The whole edifice is in its way a triumph of decorative skill of which the people are reasonably proud. ”

“ The prince may trust, and yet the people praise;
His genius ardent, yet his judgment clear,
His tongue is flowing, and his heart sincere,
His counsel guides, his temper cheers our isle,
And, smiling, gives three kingdoms cause to smile."
Joy then to Britain, blest with such a son,
To Walpole joy, by whom the prize is won;
Who nobly conscious meets the smiles of fate;
True greatness lies in daring to be great.
Let dastard souls, or affectation, run
To shades, nor wear bright honours fairly won;
Such men prefer, misled by false applause,
The pride of modesty to virtue's cause. ”

“ Young men will be there, walking briskly up, laughing and talking to each other, very happy, very merry, glad to see each other, to see so many people, calling pleasant greetings to their friends as they pass. ”

“ Hunters hunting with incredible silver guns, skimming along the roads to the hills and the forests in fantastic vehicles, alighting by roadsides and lumbering across fields to timber stands; routing out the people from elms and oaks and maples and locusts and even sumac, flushing them out like rabbits and shooting them down in cold blood with blinding shards of bullets. ”

“ Have the United States? Yes! they have trampled the Constitution under their feet with impunity, and ridden recklessly over all law, to persecute and drive this people. Admit, for argument's sake, that the "Mormon" Elders have more wives than one, yet our enemies never have proved it. If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people. Do the laws of the United States require us to crouch and bow down to the miserable wretches who violate them? ”

“ I say that we are the best people there is upon the earth, and we have nothing to boast of, not the least in the world. Who is there that hearkens to the will of God, or heeds his voice? Who is there, on the face of the whole earth, outside of this people, who know the mind and will of God, or that seek to do his will? It may be said that the whole Christian world are trying to serve the Lord. ”

“ In regard to your situation here, I can say there is no other people upon this earth that is favored as we are; there is no other people that enjoy the freedom that we do; there is not a spot in the United States—our once happy country—that now has the freedom and peace that we have in these valleys. And let me say to you, when your Bishop calls upon you, or advises you to do anything that will be for your good, do not call that oppression. All the instruction he gives will be calculated to do you good, to raise you in that scale of intelligence that will make of you wise men and wise women. ”

“ When we read of and contemplate the manners, morals and customs that prevail in the world and compare them with those of the Latter-day Saints, we may justly come to the conclusion that we are "a strange people," for, in these respects, we are very different to the rest of the world. How strange it is that we should do differently from the rest of mankind! How strange it is that we should believe differently from our neighbors! It is very strange indeed that we cannot embrace the so-called Christian religion and be satisfied therewith. ”

“ There is one thing in the sayings of brother Babbit, which I will refer to, in relation to the loyalty of this people. I am at the defiance of the rulers of the greatest nation on the earth, with the United States all put together, to produce a more loyal people than the Latter-day Saints. Have they, as a people, broken any law? ”

“ If they wish us to forget the past, let them cease to make and circulate falsehoods about us, and let all the good people of the Government say—"Let us do this people good for the future, and not try to crush them down all the day long by continuing to persecute them." ”

“ Compare the condition of the people in some of the German States, and in any nation on the face of the earth that we know anything about, with that of the people in this Territory, and I will say that the people of these mountains wallow and revel in luxury, wealth and independence more than any other people on the face of the earth, and yet we have not a dollar to pay Tithing! ”

“ But when the people of God are gathered out to one place, they are then taught the so-called little things that pertain to every day life, which they cannot be taught while they are in a scattered condition. ”

“ Here are a people dwelling in these mountains who profess to be the Saints of the Most High, the beloved of the Lord. They have received his Priesthood and its keys, the keys of Government, and the plan of the government of the heavenly hosts, as far as man is capable of receiving this divine, celestial and holy law. When we contemplate the course of the Latter-day Saints, we are almost led to inquire what will be their future history. ”

“ But no, my brethren, this is not what you have come here for; the Lord has called the people together expressly to teach them the things which pertain to this world and to this life, that they may know how to honor the life he has given them here.
The inhabitants of the earth are ignorant with regard to the design of their being; they are as ignorant in this respect as the wild animals that roam over the plains. They may be very religious, but the religion that is popular in the world now is entirely another thing from the ways of the Lord. ”

“ Many of their traditions are good, and many of the people possess much good moral religion; I may say, so far as morality goes, that they are just as good as people can be, but they are not taught how to govern and control themselves, they are not taught the worth of their present life. The whole drift, labor, and exertions of the priests of the day among the people are to prepare them to die. ”

“ If I should stand before all the kings, potentates, and princes of the earth, in one general assembly, the comparison would not begin to bear with the present occasion. They are men chosen by the people alone, and destitute of the power of an eternal Priesthood. ”

“ I would be happy, exceedingly happy, to let our past experience and afflictions sleep for ever; but the Lord will not suffer me to let them sleep I would be willing to forget them, but I cannot. The Lord will never suffer this people to dwindle down, and be hid up in a corner; it cannot be; neither does He want any person to help them but Himself. Satan and the Lord never can shake hands, and He will let the nation know it; for He has got servants who will do His righteous will, and that faithfully. ”

“ Improvement belongs to the spirit and plan of the heavens. To improve in our minds, to increase in wisdom, knowledge and understanding, to gather every item of knowledge that we can in mechanism and in science of every description, respecting the earth, the object of the organization of the earth, the heavens, the heavenly bodies—all this is of Heaven, it is from God; but when a person or a people begin to dwindle, to lessen and to take the downward course, they are going from heaven and heavenly things. You have seen this illustrated in those who leave this Church. ”