“A young man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.”
Harbours of Memory (1921), p. 236
Paraphrased variant: A man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.
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William McFee 19
American writer 1881–1966Related quotes
“Young people must break machines to learn how to use them; get another made!”
when he was told that one of his valuable instruments was broken by a young man, as quoted in Biographical Memoir of Henry Cavendish, by Georges Cuvier, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1828), p. 222.

“A man is as old as his arteries, and as young as his ideas.”
Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 4 : On Old Age

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.”

“The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams.”
"Departure"
Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Context: The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.

“How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind