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.
Samuel Ullman (USA, 1840-1924)
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