On Youth
Youth is not entirely a time of life – it is a state of mind. It is not
wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips, or supple knees. It is a temper
of will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions.
Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. People grow old only
by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your
doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fears; as young
as your hope, as old as your despair.
In the central place of every heart, there is a recording chamber; so long
as it receives messages of beauty and hope, cheer and courage, you are young.
When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of
pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and only then have you grown old.