Youth
Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of
life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and
supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor
of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a
temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for
adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than
a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by
deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or
sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the
unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of
living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station;
so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men
and from the infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are
down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of
pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials
are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at
eighty.
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