|
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not amatter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of thewill, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is thefreshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity,of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often existsin a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by anumber of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles thesoul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the springback to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure ofwonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy ofthe game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is awireless
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 ofcynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20,but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, thereis hope you may die young at 80. |
|