Thoughts of Famous Youth Quotes in English Images Sayings

Youth quotes in English capture the essence of youthful energy, ambition, and idealism. These sayings often reflect the unique perspectives of young people as they navigate challenges and dreams. Quotes from influential figures like Nelson Mandela, who said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world," inspire action and resilience. Similarly, quotes from contemporary voices emphasize creativity and individuality, resonating with the desire to make a mark in an ever-changing world. By sharing these quotes, we can motivate and empower the youth, encouraging them to embrace their potential and strive for meaningful change.

Here is a list of famous youth quotes with their detailed meanings and examples:


1. "Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind." — Samuel Ullman

  • Meaning: This quote highlights that youth is more than just an age—it is about having a mindset full of energy, curiosity, and optimism. One can have a youthful spirit at any age as long as they maintain enthusiasm and a positive outlook on life.

  • Example: A retired person who takes up a new hobby or travels the world shows that youthfulness is a matter of attitude, not age.


2. "The youth is the hope of our future." — José Rizal

  • Meaning: Rizal emphasizes the power and potential of young people. Youth represents the future of society, and their actions, values, and ideas shape the world to come.

  • Example: A group of teenagers leading a local environmental initiative reflects how the younger generation is actively contributing to the future of the planet.


3. "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Meaning: Emerson encourages young people to be pioneers, to create their own way in life rather than following the conventional routes that others have taken. Youth should embrace creativity and originality.

  • Example: A young entrepreneur starting a tech startup that challenges traditional ways of doing business embodies this mindset of forging new paths.


4. "In youth we learn; in age we understand." — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  • Meaning: This quote reflects that youth is a time for acquiring knowledge and exploring possibilities, while older age is a time for reflecting on and comprehending the lessons learned.

  • Example: A young student in college absorbs academic knowledge, while an experienced professional later applies that knowledge in the real world with deeper understanding.


5. "The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions." — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  • Meaning: Holmes distinguishes between the theoretical knowledge of youth and the wisdom that comes with experience. While young people may have a clear understanding of how things are supposed to work, older people know the nuances and exceptions to those rules.

  • Example: A young lawyer follows the law strictly, while a more seasoned mentor understands the flexibility within the legal system, allowing for creative solutions.


6. "Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art." — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  • Meaning: Lec compares youth to a natural, effortless gift, while age represents a product of growth and experience. It suggests that youth comes easily, but aging is something that requires effort and skill to embrace gracefully.

  • Example: A teenager who effortlessly has boundless energy is contrasted with an older individual who has honed their wisdom and emotional maturity over time.


7. "You’re only as old as you feel." — Dorothy McNaught

  • Meaning: This quote reinforces the idea that age is relative to how one feels, both physically and mentally. A person may be technically elderly but still feel youthful due to their attitude or lifestyle choices.

  • Example: An older person who actively participates in sports or hobbies and feels energetic can be seen as “young at heart,” regardless of their biological age.


8. "The best way to predict your future is to create it." — Abraham Lincoln

  • Meaning: This quote speaks to the power that youth has in shaping their future. Rather than waiting for opportunities to come, young people should take proactive steps to create their own future through their actions and choices.

  • Example: A young artist deciding to pursue their passion for painting and developing a career in the arts shows how individuals can shape their own futures through determination.


9. "Young people, who are still not mature, will talk about ideals, but people who have gone through hardships will speak about the reality." — Haruki Murakami

  • Meaning: Murakami reflects on the difference between youth and age. While young people are often idealistic, older people, having faced struggles, speak from a more grounded, realistic perspective.

  • Example: A young college graduate dreams of changing the world, while an older mentor offers practical advice based on years of experience navigating the complexities of life.


10. "It is not how old you are, but how you are old." — Jules Renard

  • Meaning: Renard suggests that age is less important than how one carries themselves. You can remain youthful by staying active and mentally engaged, no matter how many years have passed.

  • Example: A 60-year-old who still enjoys hiking, reading, and learning new things maintains a youthful demeanor because they stay curious and engaged with life.


11. "Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it." — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  • Meaning: Rousseau emphasizes that youth should be spent learning, acquiring knowledge, and understanding life, while older age is a time for applying that wisdom in real-world situations.

  • Example: A young student spends years reading philosophy, while an older teacher uses that wisdom to guide and mentor younger generations.


12. "Youth is the foundation of life, the cornerstone of the future, and the fountain of vitality." — Unknown

  • Meaning: This quote highlights youth as the essential building block for both the present and the future. It is a time of energy, growth, and potential, and everything that follows is built upon it.

  • Example: A young athlete training for the Olympics represents the vital energy and promise of youth that will shape their future success.


13. "The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." — William James

  • Meaning: James urges young people to focus their energy on causes, ideas, or actions that will have a lasting impact, far beyond their own lifetimes.

  • Example: A young person who works for environmental sustainability, creating initiatives to reduce pollution, is contributing to something that will benefit future generations.


14. "Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  • Meaning: Goethe speaks to the ever-changing nature of life, especially during youth. The young must embrace change and be adaptable in order to fully live.

  • Example: A young entrepreneur who adapts their business model to shifting market demands demonstrates the ability to navigate change and thrive.


15. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." — African Proverb

  • Meaning: This proverb speaks to the value of teamwork and collaboration, especially for young people embarking on a journey. It encourages them to think long-term and work together for greater success.

  • Example: A group of college students working together on a startup venture learns that collaboration is key to turning their ideas into a thriving business.


These quotes reflect the energy, challenges, and opportunities of youth, encouraging young people to embrace their potential, learn, and shape their future while navigating the realities of life. They serve as powerful reminders of the importance of a positive mindset, hard work, and collaboration in shaping a meaningful life.

Thought of the day Youth

Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way; the land of hoy lies all before his eyes.

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton Thoughts

To be young is all there is in the world. They talk so beautifully about work and having a family and a home (and I do, too, sometimes) – but it’s all worry and head-aches and respectable poverty and forced gushing. Telling people how nice it is, when, in reality, you would give all of your last thirty years for one of your first thirty.  Old people are tremendous frauds.

- Wallace Stevens

Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other? To try the manners of different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see the sunrise in town and country; to be converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to applaud Hernani.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

In the first day of my youth I tried to find it in the creatures, as I saw others do: but the more I sought, the less I found it, and the nearer I went to it, the further off it was.  For of every image that appeared to me, before I had fully tested it, or abandoned myself to peace in it, and inner voice said to me: “This is not what thou seekest.”

- Heinrich Suso

Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead.

- Henry David Thoreau

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, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

- Samuel Ullman

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth and I suppose for older people the love of youth in others.

- Source Unknown

The good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you cannot possibly do the things you are doing.

- Source Unknown

There is period near the beginning of every man’s life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.

- E(lwyn) (Brooks) White

Youth, large, lusty, loving – Youth, full of grace, force, fascination.  Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?

- Walt Whitman

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

- Oscar Wilde

Youth Sayings List in English

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

- Cyril Connolly

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

- Cyril Connolly Quotation

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told.

- Charles Dickens Quotes

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told.

- A Quotation From Charles Dickens

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely

- Grit

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely

- Grit

On the neck of a young man sparkles no gem so gracious as enterprise.

- Hafiz

On the neck of a young man sparkles no gem so gracious as enterprise.

- Hafiz

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme.

- Aaron Hill

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme.

- Aaron Hill

Youth itself is a talent – a perishable talent.

- Eric Hoffer

Youth itself is a talent – a perishable talent.

- Eric Hoffer

Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person.

- Horace

Youth is unduly busy with pampering the outer person.

- Horace

Ask the young. They know everything.

- Joseph Joubert

The passions of the young are vices in the old.

- Joseph Joubert

Your are only young once, and if you work it right, once is enough.

- Joe E. Lewis American Writer

Youth comes but once in a lifetime.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.

- James Russell Lowell

Youth should be a savings bank.

- Anne Sophie Stevenson

It is better to be young June-beg than an old bird of paradise.

- Mark Twain

Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.

- Source Unknown

Like a kite cut from the string, lightly the soul of my youth has taken flight.

- Ishikawa Takuboku

For God’s sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him…

- Orison Swett Marden

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.

- W. Somerset Maugham

The American ideal is youth – handsome, empty youth.

- Henry Miller

Childhood shows the man, as morning show the day.

- John Milton

Youth has no age.

- Pablo Picasso

Those whom the gods love grow young.

- Oscar Wilde

Youth is a quality, not a matter of circumstances.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates.  The radicals are the men past middle life.

- Woodrow T. Wilson

Young people need models, not critics…

- John Wooden

Youth Thought in English

Youth is wasted on the young!

- Steven Devlin handsome fellow

Youth has become a class.

- Roger Vadim

Youth today must be strong, unafraid, and a better taxpayer than its father.

- H. V. Wade

What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to the seen.

- Evelyn Waugh

Youth covets; let not this covetousness seduce you.

- Johann Friedrich Van Schiller

It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.

- Seneca

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

- William Shakespeare

Don’t let young people tell you their aspirations; when they drop them they will drop you.

- Logan Pearsall Smith

Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

- George Bernard Shaw

It is all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

- George Bernard Shaw

Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

- George Bernard Shaw

Youth holds no society with grief.

- Euripides

Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor. Euripides

Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor.

- Euripides Download or Share Image

Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth.

- Natalie Clifford Barney

I’m youth, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

- Sir James M. Barrie

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.

- Robert Browning

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

- Edmund Burke

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

- Benjamin Disraeli

Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.

- Horace Benchley

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

- Anita Brookner

If youth but knew; if age but could.

- Henri Estienne

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

Benjamin Disraeli

Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way; the land of hoy lies all before his eyes.

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton *

There’s nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won’t aggravate.

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Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts.

Jose Ortega Y Gasset Download or Share

No man knows he is young while he is young.

- Gilbert K. Chesterton Download or Share

A sensual and intemperate youth translates into an old worn out body.

- Marcus T. Cicero Download or Share

All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die, And youth, that’s not so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by.

- Conrad Aiken American Writer

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

- Aristotle

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

- Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than be reasoning – all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything – they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.

- Aristotle

Youth Quotations in English

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy.  It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

- Margaret Atwood

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

- Francis Bacon

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

- Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

- Josh Billings

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.

- Pearl S. Buck

Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes.

- Thomas Carlyle

Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.

- Lord Chesterfield

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

- Marcus T. Cicero

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more – the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that loves us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort – to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires – and expires, too soon, too soon – before life itself.

- Joseph Conrad

The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.

- Quentin Crisp

The hated of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.

- Midge Doctor

Youth, what man’s age is like to be, doth show, We may our ends by our beginnings know.

- Sir John Denham

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous.  We must prepare for the coming hour.  The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

- Benjamin Disraeli

The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning.

- T. S. Eliot

Let's tell young people the best books are yet to written; the best painting, the best government the best of everything is yet to be done by them.

- John Erskine

Young men wish; love, money and health. One day, they'll say; health, money and love.

- Paul Geraldy

Youth troubles over eternity, age grasps at a day and is satisfied to have even the day.

- Dame Mary Gilmore

Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As youth lives in the future, so the adult lives in the past: No one rightly knows how to live in the present.

- Franz Grillparzer

Do not commit the error common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.

- Jan De Hartog

Man’s own youth is the world’s youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth’s granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Youth, abundant wealth, high birth, and inexperience, are, each of them a source of ruin.  What then must be the fate of those in whom all four are combined.

- Hitopadesa

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

- Herbert Clark Hover

Youth is about the only thing worth having, and that is about the only thong youth has.

- Edgar Watson Howe

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

- Samuel Johnson

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve.  She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

- Samuel Johnson

I, for one, hope that youth will again revolt and again demoralize the dead weight of conformity that now lies upon us.

- Howard M. Jones

The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.

- Carl Jung

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

- Franz Kafka

It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world.  Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance it allotted length.

- Helen Keller

Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

- Fran Lebowitz

A hundred things are done today in the divine name of Youth, that if they showed their true colors would be seen by rights to belong rather to old age.

- Wyndham Lewis

Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock.

- Ben Lindsey

A youth with his first cigar makes himself sick; a youth with his first girls makes everybody sick.

- Mary Little

How beautiful is youth! How bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of Beginnings, Story without End, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The young, whether they know it or not, live on borrowed property.

- Richard W. Livingston

Enjoy the Spring of love and Youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year’s nest!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In grade school, I was a complete geek. You know, there’s always the kid who’s too short, the kid who wears glasses, the kid who’s not athletic. Well, I was all three.

- Julianne Moore

There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the happiness of life.

- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth.

- Malcolm Muggeridge Thoughts

The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself.  All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.

- George Orwell

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind. Youth are as old as your doubt, your fear, your despair. The way to keep young is to keep your faith young. Keep your self-confidence young. Keep your hope young.

- Luella F. Phen

Youth doesn’t reason, it acts.  The old man reasons and would like to make the others act in his place.

- Francis Picabia

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age I missed it coming and going.

- J. B. Priestley

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of sincerely insincere.

- V. S. Pritchett

Youth Quotes List

If youth but had the knowledge and old age the strength.

- French Proverb Sayings of French Origin

Youth lives on hope, old age on memories.

- French Proverb Sayings of French Origin

Use your youth so that you may have comfort to remember it when it has forsaken you, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.

- Sir Walter Raleigh

When the newspapers have got nothing else to talk about, they cut loose on the young.  The young are always news. If they are up to something, that’s news. If they aren’t, that’s news too.

- Kenneth Rexroth

I’m really glad that your young people missed the Depression I’m really glad that your young people missed the Depression and missed the big war.  But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we’d have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile.  They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.

- Ann Richards American Politicians

Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.

- Arthur Rimbaud

The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.

-Saki

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?

- William Shakespeare

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

- George Bernard Shaw

Don’t laugh at youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own.

- Logan Pearsall Smith

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood.

- Logan Pearsall Smith