Quotes About Youth

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

I'm not the only one to feel this effect; as we get older, time seems to pass more quickly. As poet Robert Southey explained: "Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.

She remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her. Now she saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied: she was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional figures; the long dream of her youth was coming true.

For every bourgeois, in the heat of youth, if only for a day, for a minute, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of heroic enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of oriental princesses; every rotary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.

How oft the warmth of the sun above Makes a pretty young girl dream of love.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

She remembered the summer evenings all full of sunshine. The colts neighed when any one passed by, and galloped, galloped. Under her window there was a beehive, and sometimes the bees wheeling round in the light struck against her window like rebounding balls of gold.

H]e was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.

In his earliest youth, he had drawn inspiration from really bad authors, as you may have seen from his style; as he grew older, he lost his taste for them, but the excellent authors just didn't fill him with the same enthusiasm

Cheer up,' said the captain's son. 'Life is long, and we are young.

For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.

Car tout bourgeois, dans l'échauffement de sa jeunesse, ne fût-ce qu'un jour, une minute, s'est cru capable d'immenses passions, de hautes entreprises. Le plus médiocre libertin. a rêvé des sultanes ; chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d'un poète.

Every bourgeois in the ferment of his youth, if only for a day or a minute, has believed himself capable of a grand passion, of a high endeavor. Every run-of-the-mill seducer has dreamed of Eastern queens. Not a lawyer but carries within him the débris of a poet.

Rien ne vaut les souvenirs et les illusions de l'adolescence.

Those who were beginning to grow old had an air of youth, while there was something mature in the faces of the young.

She repeated, I have a lover! a lover! delighting at the idea as if a second puberty had come to her.

So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.

J'ai rêvé la gloire quand j'étais tout enfant, et maintenant je n'ai même plus l'orgueil de la médiocrité.

He sent him to bed in an unheated room and taught him to gulp down large amounts of rum and shout insults at church processions.

Het is vreemd met hoe weinig vertrouwen in geluk ik geboren ben. Heel jong al voorvoelde ik precies wat het leven zou worden. Het was als een weerzinwekkende etensgeur, die uit een keldergat ontsnapte. Je hoeft er niet van gegeten te hebben om te weten dat je er kotsmisselijk van wordt. - Gustave Flaubert

As a child I loved what can be seen, as a teenager what can be felt, as a man I no longer love anything.

As a child I dreamt of love—as a young man of fame—as a man, of the tomb, that last love of those who have no love left.

For you have doubtless done as I did at the age of fifteen, you have once thought you were in love with that burning and frenzied love of the kind you've seen in books, whereas all you were suffering from was just a slight scratch on the epidermis of your heart left by that iron claw called passion, and you were blowing with all the strength of your imagination on that modest fire that was barely even alight.

Calvitie. Toujours précoce, est causée par des excès de jeunesse ou la conception de grandes pensées.