Youth

Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter ofrosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, aquality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness ofthe deep springs of life.
Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of theappetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of60 more than a boy of 20.　Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.　Wegrow 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 spring back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder,the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game ofliving.　In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wirelessstation: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage andpower from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicismand the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long asyour aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die