Youth
Samuel Ullman.
1840-1924
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 body 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.
