Youth
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.
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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