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Youth quotes

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“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.” William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” - 1623

“If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.” Honoré de Balzac, “Father Goriot” - 1835

“The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.” William Shakespeare, “Richard III” - 1597

“By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“It's a pleasant thing to be young and have ten toes, and you may lay to that.” Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island” - 1883

“I was a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“I realized that I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.” Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” - 1969

“But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Young men are fitter to invent, than to judge; fitter for execution, than for counsel; and fitter for new projects, than for settled business.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Only the dead stay 17 for ever.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Or what is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“Love is too young to know what conscience is;” William Shakespeare, “Shakespeare's Sonnets” - 1609

“Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“They say an old man is twice a child.” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“I never knew so young a body with so old a head.” William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice” - 1600

“I know not why I love this youth, and I have heard you say love's reason's without reason.” William Shakespeare, “Cymbeline” - 1623

“I have had my share of vanity; for as a young man I was admired by women; and as a statue I am praised by art critics.” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“The blood of youth burns not with such excess as gravity's revolt to wantonness.” William Shakespeare, “Love's Labour's Lost” - 1598

“Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?” William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2” - 1600

“For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.” William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 1” - 1597

“A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.” Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” - 1876

“It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to...” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because...” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential.” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“And then, strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl it is boldness.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“In the same way I have always regarded boxing as a first-class sport to encourage in the Young Men's Christian Association.” Theodore Roosevelt, “Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography” - 1913

“There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?” Confucius, “Analects”

“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.” Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women” - 1868

“One can't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.” Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady” - 1881

“I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“And my father! —oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth!” Walter Scott, “Ivanhoe” - 1820

“In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” - 1858

“ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“What a weary time those years were—to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“At your age we have faith in life; it is the privilege of youth to believe and hope, but old men see death more clearly.” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“The years 19 and 20 are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“When you’re young and healthy you can plan on Monday to commit suicide, and by Wednesday you’re laughing again.” Marilyn Monroe, “My Story” - 1974

“As the idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the domestic tranquility.” John F. Kennedy, “State of the Union Address” - 14 January 1963

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything . . . and when they grow older they know it.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going...” Arthur Schopenhauer, “On the Sufferings of the World”

Related topics

age love death experience life ignorance hope beauty man woman judgement travel idealism timidity men wisdom flower conscience mind blindness

Related authors

William Shakespeare (13)
Oscar Wilde (3)
Charlotte Brontë (3)
Haruki Murakami (2)
George Bernard Shaw (1)
James Joyce (1)
Mark Twain (1)
George Eliot (1)
Robert Louis Stevenson (1)
Nelson Mandela (1)
Maya Angelou (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Victor Hugo (1)
Theodore Roosevelt (1)
Benjamin Franklin (1)
Confucius (1)
Joseph Conrad (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Henry James (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)

Related sources

Much Ado About Nothing (3)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (3)
Jane Eyre (3)
Norwegian Wood (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
Hamlet (1)
Shakespeare's Sonnets (1)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)
The Merchant of Venice (1)
Richard III (1)
Man and Superman (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
Cymbeline (1)
Love's Labour's Lost (1)
Henry IV, Part 2 (1)
Henry IV, Part 1 (1)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1)
Middlemarch (1)
Treasure Island (1)
Long Walk to Freedom (1)