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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