Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind, it is a temper of the
will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance
of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
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Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years
wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles
the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and
despair - these are the long, long years that bow
the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. |
Whether they are sixteen or seventy, there is in every
being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at
the stars and starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted
challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for
what is to come next, and the joy and the game of life.
You
are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your
fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
When the wires are all down and all the innermost
core of your heart is covered with the snows of
pessimism and the ice of cynicism,
then you are grown old indeed.
But
so long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long you are
young.
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