| |
| |
|
|
| |
Youth
by Samuel Ullman
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.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|