Youth

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, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty.

Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow 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 spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless 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 of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

青 春
塞繆爾•厄爾曼

青春不是年華，而是心境；青春不是桃面、丹脣、柔膝，而是深沉的意志，恢宏的想象，熾熱的感情；青春是生命的源泉在不息的湧流。

青春氣貫長虹，勇鋭蓋過怯懦，進取壓倒苟安。如此鋭氣，弱冠後生有之，耳順之年則亦多見，年歲有加，並非垂老；理想丟棄，方墮暮年。

歲月悠悠，衰微只及肌膚，熱忱拋卻，頹唐必至靈魂。憂煩，惶恐，喪失自信，定使心靈扭曲，意氣如灰。

無論年屆古稀，抑或二八芳齡，心中皆有生命之歡樂，奇蹟之誘惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆深植一片追求，只要你從天上，人間追求美好，希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量，你就青春永駐，風華長存。

一旦追求消失，鋭氣如同冰雪覆蓋，玩世不恭、自暴自棄油然而生，即使年方二十，實已老矣。然堅持追求，你就有望在百歲高齡告別塵寰時仍覺年青。