Quotes about young
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“It is often said that New York is a city for only the very rich and the very poor. It is less often said that New York is also, at least for those of us who came there from somewhere else, a city for only the very young.”

Joan Didion book Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Source: Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Youth

“Seeing the world with all the unspoiled simplicity of a young child, you are free from concepts of beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and no longer fall prey to conflicting tendencies driven by desire or repulsion. Why trouble yourself about all the ups and downs of daily life, like a child who delights in building a sand castle but cries when it collapses? To get what they want and be rid of what they dislike, look how people throw themselves into torments, like moths plunging into the flame of a lamp! Would it not be better to put down your heavy burden of dreamlike obsessions once and for all?”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Life, People, World, Beauty

“Most Young Kings Get Their Heads Cut Off”

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) American artist

“A living skeleton isn't enough for you, is it? What does it take to impress young people these days?”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

People

“There's no sinner like a young saint.”

Aphra Behn The Rover

The Rover, Part I, Act I, sc. ii.

“The Mad Hatter: "Would you like some wine?"
Alice: "Yes…"
The Mad Hatter: "We haven't any and you're too young.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Wine, Madness

“The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Secret

“My God died young. Theolatry i found
Degrading, and its premises, unsound.
No free man needs God; but was I free?”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

God

“Oscar Wilde was suing the Marquis of Queensbury in 1895 for libel accusing Wilde of homosexuality

Counsel: Have you ever adored a young man madly?
Wilde: I have never given adoration to anyone except myself.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (1987) by Pierre Cabanne
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1981 - 1989

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. XI, l. 108.
Source: The Prelude (1799-1805)

“The surya namaskar is essentially about building a dimension within you where your physical bodily cycles are in sync with the sun’s cycles, which run about twelve and a quarter years. It is not by accident but by intent that it has been structured with twelve postures. If your system is in a certain level of vibrancy and readiness, and in a high state of receptivity, then naturally your cycle will be in sync with the solar cycle. Young”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Nature, Sun

“Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done.”

Yukio Mishima book After the Banquet

Source: After the Banquet

People, Idea

“I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers… this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Women, Books

“Did they know - the young and fearless - what a miraculous thing it was to have all of anyone?”

Nora Roberts Vision in White

Source: Vision in White

“LADY BRACKNELL

Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: I am not young enough to know everything.

Deep

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Way, Boy, Hell, Fish

“Whom the gods love dies young.”

Menander (-342–-291 BC) Athenian playwright of New Comedy

[Epigramatic] Sentences, 425
He whom the gods love dies young.
The Double Deceiver, frag. 4.
Variant: ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνῄσκει νέος.
Source: Menander: The Plays and Fragments

Love, God

“A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Pleasure, Secret, Passion

“You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

People

“Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.

Yes, murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; and when they grow older they know it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings

Money, People, Imagination

“A poetess who had died young of cancer had said in one of her poems that for her, on sleepless nights, 'the night offers toads and black dogs and corpses of the drowned.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Source: House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

Dogs, Night

“He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Variant: .. the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and [that] thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Memory, Past, Heart

“Maturity is simply the process of discovering that everything you believed in when you were young is false and that all the things you refused to believe in turn out to be true.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Midnight Palace

Source: The Midnight Palace

Falseness

“Hell, I am young. I am free. My teeth are clean. The sun shines. To hell with everything else”

Stephen Fry book Making History

Source: Making History

Hell, Sun

“For the young people could not talk. And why should they? Shout, embrace, swing, be up at dawn…”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

People

“It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Love, Men, Heart

“You speak from your heart, young Firepaw. This will make you a stronger warrior one day." said Lionheart
Tigerclaw growled. "Or it might make him give in to kittypet weakness right at the moment of attack”

Erin Hunter

Source: Into the Wild

Heart

“She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for [him] was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Love

“When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Books, Heart

“We'll never be as young as we are tonight.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

“You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake

World, Thinking

“Young, gifted, and destitute…”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

War, Betrayal

“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

People, World, Hope, Hope

“Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Effort, Childhood

“Young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. Everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Love, People

“… inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

Personality

“One of my favorite album covers is On the Beach. Of course that was the name of a movie and I stole it for my record, but that doesn't matter. The idea for that cover came like a bolt from the blue. Gary and I traveled around getting all the pieces to put it together. We went to a junkyard in Santa Ana to get the tail fin and fender from a 1959 Cadillac, complete with taillights, and watched them cut it off a Cadillac for us, then we went to a patio supply place to get the umbrella and table. We picke up the bad polyester yellow jacket and white pants at a sleazy men's shop, where we watched a shoplifter getting caught red-handed and busted. Gary and I were stoned on some dynamite weed and stood there dumbfounded watching the bust unfold. This girl was screaming and kicking! Finally we grabbed a local LA paper to use as a prop. It had this amazing headline: Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon to Resign. Next we took the palm tree I had taken around the world on the Tonight's the Night tour. We then placed all of these pieces carefully in the sand at Santa Monica beach. Then we shot it. Bob Seidemann was the photographer, the same one who took the famous Blind Faith cover shot of the naked young girl holding the airplane. We used the crazy pattern from the umbrella insides for the inside of the sleeve that held the vinyl recording. That was the creative process at work. We lived for that, Gary and I, and we still do.”

Neil Young book Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Source: Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Men, World, Faith, Travel

“How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?”

Paul Sweeney (1989) Scottish politician

Patience

“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”

Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

Age, Birthday

“It’s not the good that die young, it’s the lucky.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

People, Daughters

“Our Job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make the ungrateful so they keep going. Gratitude never radicalized anybody”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Women, Gratitude

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer … It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

World, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young and believing”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Drink, Forgetting

“In his early twenties, a man started collecting paintings, many of which later became famous: Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Over the decades he amassed a wonderful collection. Eventually, the man’s beloved son was drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam, where he died while trying to save his friend. About a month after the war ended, a young man knocked on the devastated father’s door. “Sir,” he said, “I know that you like great art, and I have brought you something not very great.” Inside the package, the father found a portrait of his son. With tears running down his cheeks, the father said, “I want to pay you for this.ℍ “No,” the young man replied, “he saved my life. You don’t owe me anything.ℍ The father cherished the painting and put it in the center of his collection. Whenever people came to visit, he made them look at it. When the man died, his art collection went up for sale. A large crowd of enthusiastic collectors gathered. First up for sale was the amateur portrait. A wave of displeasure rippled through the crowd. “Let’s forget about that painting!” one said. “We want to bid on the valuable ones,” said another. Despite many loud complaints, the auctioneer insisted on starting with the portrait. Finally, the deceased man’s gardener said, “I’ll bid ten dollars.ℍ Hearing no further bids, the auctioneer called out, “Sold for ten dollars!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then the auctioneer said, “And that concludes the auction.” Furious gasps shook the room. The auctioneer explained, “Let me read the stipulation in the will: “Sell the portrait of my son first, and whoever buys it gets the entire art collection. Whoever takes my son gets everything.ℍ It’s the same way with God Almighty. Whoever takes his Son gets everything.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, War, People

“Young man, the games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.”

Terry Pratchett book Dodger

Source: Dodger

Game, Learning, Change

“Remember, young man, experience is not the best teacher. Other people's experience is the best teacher. By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People, Secret, Teachers, Reading

“Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Men, Faith

“A man with charm is an entertaining thing, and a man with looks is, ofcourse, a sight to behold, but a man with honor - ah, he is the one, dear reader, to which young ladies should flock.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Viscount Who Loved Me

“She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Life, Children, People, World

“You just put that sword away, sir, please," said the voice of Lance-Constable Vimes.
"You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder," said the captain calmly.
"Not where I'm aiming, sir.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Love

“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

“LORD ILLINGWORTH: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.
MRS ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Life, Soul

“My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Nature, Heart, Sea

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

“It's only worth staying in bed if you're young and in good company.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

“Let old ones go. Dont be a memory-monger!
Once you were young──now you are even younger.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Memory

“He's waiting for yu, young queen.'

Shocked, I stared at Seoras. 'Heath?'

The Warrior's look was wise and understanding - his voice gentle. 'Aye, yur Heath probably does await you somewhere in the future, but it is of your Guardian I speak.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

Understanding, Waiting, Future

“You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Money

“Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Teachers

“Never cross a woman with a star on a stick, young lady. They've got a mean streak.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Star

“Sometimes,” Robert said, “you choose whom you want to be with when you’re too young, and you change, and they don’t change with you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Change

“I meet a third man he's an old man he trips in the street he falls and I help him up, walk him to the curb. He shakes my hand says keep the faith, young man. I ask him what he means, he says keep running and don't let them catch you.”

James Frey My Friend Leonard

Source: My Friend Leonard

Faith, Help

“Everything doesn't seem like anything when you love someone. Especially when you're young.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Love

“Fairy Song
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,—
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
‘Mong the blossoms white and red—
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! ’tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man’s ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu—I fly—adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,—
Adieu, adieu!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Flowers, Tear, Sleep, Flying

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Sadness, Feeling, Time

“I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U. S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted—and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety

Decision

“It seems that our brave new world is becoming less tolerant, spiritual and educated than it ever was when I was young.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

World, Education

“The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young people are fools.”

Agatha Christie Murder at the Vicarage

Source: Murder at the Vicarage

People, Fools, Thinking

“Let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who's trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Fate

“The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Lover's Gift

Books, Youth, Heart

“Sometimes it's only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.”

Diana Peterfreund (1979) American writer

Source: Across a Star-Swept Sea

World, Change

“You've no idea how long life goes on and how many, many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it's over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong.”

Nancy Mitford (1904–1973) British writer

Source: Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels

Life, People, Imagination, Idea

“a young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Source: Twelfth Night

Love, Smile, Patience

“These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere…. You can run but you can't hide.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness..”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

God, Happiness, History, Idea

“My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature. And can I do that alone? No. So there is a whole army of youth that can do it. So I suppose my mission is to reach as many of those young people as I can through my own efforts.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Then & Now: Jane Goodall (2005)

People, Youth, World, Nature

“"There are some dead who are more alive than the living."
"No, no! It would be more true to say that there are some who are more dead than the dead."
"Maybe. In any case there are old things which are still young."
"Then if they are still young we can find them for ourselves…. But I don't believe it. What has been good once never is good again."”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Revolt (1905)

Dead

“We live in a troubled, but wonderful time. It is our good fortune to witness and benefit from scientific advances that would have been literally unimaginable to our grandparents. However, there are dark clouds on the horizon. The rate of growth of scientific knowledge has been so great as to outstrip the ability of our society to assimilate it, the capacity of the educational system to teach it properly and the wisdom of government adequately to sustain and apply it. There is growing indifference to science among the young. Even medical science, which touches the lives of us all, is generally left to the practitioners. Whatever the reason for this disparity between the importance of science and the lack of general public understanding, it is important to address it.”

Elias James Corey (1928) American chemist

E. J. Corey, ‎Barbara Czakó, ‎László Kürti, Molecules and Medicine (2007). Introduction

Wisdom, Education, Understanding, Knowledge

“Let's go dance under the elms:
Step lively, young lassies.
Let's go dance under the elms:
Gallants, take up your pipes.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau Le devin du village

Le devin du village (1752)

Dance

“The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps — does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

61 <br class="br"> Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)

Smile, Dreams, Autumn, Sleep

“In the face of violence that seems intractable and suffering that is so senseless, it is easy to grow cynical, and I think tempting to give in to the notion that peace and security may be beyond our grasp. But I say to all of you here today, especially the young people, do not give into that cynicism. Do not lose the idealism and optimism that is the root of all great change. Don’t ever lose the faith that says, if we want it, if we are willing to work for it, if we stand together, the future can be different; tomorrow can be better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People, Peace, Faith, Optimism

“Treating women as second-class citizens is a bad tradition. It holds you back. There’s no excuse for sexual assault or domestic violence. There’s no reason that young girls should suffer genital mutilation. There’s no place in civilized society for the early or forced marriage of children. These traditions may date back centuries; they have no place in the 21st century. These are issues of right and wrong -- in any culture. But they’re also issues of success and failure. Any nation that fails to educate its girls or employ its women and allowing them to maximize their potential is doomed to fall behind in a global economy.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

Women, Marriage, Children, Education

“When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)

Women, Men, War, Truth

“Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

War, Children, Health, Education

“Hearing, one day, that a poor young girl of her acquaintance had been enticed to a fashionable house of ill-fame, she ran to the place, entered the house, and claimed the girl. She found there several gentlemen of the Court, whom she rebuked with a severity, the justice of which they confessed by sudden and precipitate flight; she then took the young girl by the hand and led her from the abode of shame.”

Josephine Butler (1828–1906) British feminist

1874 https://attackingthedevil.co.uk/related/thoughts.php

Justice, Girl, Fashion, Housing

“And finally, we recognize that our best partners in protecting vulnerable people from succumbing to violent extremist ideologies are the communities themselves -- families, friends, neighbors, clerics, faith leaders who love and care for these young people. Remember that violent extremism is not unique to any one faith, so no one should be profiled or targeted simply because of their faith.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism speech (September 2015)

Love, People, Family, Faith

“A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Une jeune fille est comme une fleur qu'on a cueillie; mais la femme coupable est une fleur sur laquelle on a marché. <br class="br"> Honorine http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Honorine (1845), translated by Clara Bell

Flowers

“For things and for poems, there is but one way of being new, and that is to be true; there is only one way of being young, and that is to be eternal.”

Paul Claudel (1868–1955) French diplomat

Il n'y a pour les choses et pour les poèmes qu'une seule manière d'être nouveaux, c'est d'être vrais et qu'une seule manière d'être jeunes, c'est d'être éternels.
Positions et propositions (Paris: Gallimard, 1928) p. 16; John O'Connor (trans.) Ways and Crossways (London: Sheed & Ward, 1935) p. 49.

Way

“Do not most of us resemble that old general of ninety who, having come upon some young officers debauching some girls, said to them angrily: "Gentlemen, is that the example I give you?"”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Ne ressemblons-nous pas presque tous à ce vieux général de quatre-vingt-dix ans, qui, ayant rencontré de jeunes officiers qui faisaient un peu de désordre avec des filles, leur dit tout en colère: "Messieurs, est-ce là l’exemple que je vous donne?"
"Character" (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Girl