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; itis 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 body 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.