“At first it had been youth's ideal of what youth should be, a pattern woven of fanatical loyalty, irresponsible gaiety, comradeship, physical gusto, and not a little pure devilry.”
Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter V: The Fall of the First Men; Section 3, “The Cult of Youth” (p. 84)
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Olaf Stapledon113
British novelist and philosopher 1886–1950Related quotes
“It is vain to try to sacrifice once for all one's youthful ideals.”
Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer
The Age for Love
Context: It is vain to try to sacrifice once for all one's youthful ideals. When a man has loved literature as I loved it at twenty, he cannot be satisfied at twenty-six to give up his early passion, even at the bidding of implacable necessity.
H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer
The Task of Social Hygiene, ch. 1 (1912)
“Youth should be a savings-bank.”
Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian salon-holder
Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 921-24.
“What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.”
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Context: ... education should try to lessen the obstacles, diminish the friction, invigorate the energy, and should train minds to react, not at haphazard, but by choice, on the lines of force that attract their world. What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. Throughout human history the waste of mind has been appalling, and, as this story is meant to show, society has conspired to promote it. No doubt the teacher is the worst criminal, but the world stands behind him and drags the student from his course. The moral is stentorian. Only the most energetic, the most highly fitted, and the most favored have overcome the friction or the viscosity of inertia, and these were compelled to waste three-fourths of their energy in doing it.
Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet
A Proper Gentleman, 1977
Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France
Source: Conversations with Judith Cladel (1939–1944), pp. 406-407