No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.
—Bessie Smith, 1926Quotes
Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, c. 1940I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.
—Theognis, c. 550 BCChildhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
—Donald Barthelme, 1964Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936