Eighteen might look at thirty-four through a rising mist of adolescence; but twenty-two would see thirty-eight with discerning clarity.
—Unknown
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
To young people everything looks permanent, established-and in their eyes everything should be, needs to be changed. To older people everything seems to change, and in their view almost nothing should.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Our choices do not begin with an action,
They begin with an idea.
—Unknown
The person, who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Most oldsters are fascinated by the Future, while the young love to look back to earlier days, especially their own.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy souls diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
If you believe in yourself, then nothing can stop you from achieving what you believe in.
—Unknown
Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Inventor
I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue don’t move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97) English Art Historian, Man of Letters, Politician
We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free of their authority.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
A man’s liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood—a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Life is hard. Next to what?
—Unknown
Adversity comes with instruction in its hand.
—Unknown
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted. If the second and third generations could profit by the experience of the first generation, we would not be having some of the troubles we have today.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
Generations are as the days of toilsome mankind…. What the father has made, the son can make and enjoy but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax and roll onwards; arts, establishments, opinions; nothing is ever completed, but ever completing.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
—John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Sixth President of the USA
You will not find what you do not live.
—Unknown
Amongst democratic nations, each generation is a new people.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they’ve got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.
—Timothy Leary (1920–96) American Psychologist, Author
The nature of human beings never changes; it is immutable. The present generation of children and the present generation of young adults from the age of thirteen to eighteen is, therefore, no different from that of their great-great-grandparents. Political fads come and go; theories rise and fall; the scientific
—Taylor Caldwell (1900–85) American Novelist
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Everyone expects to go further than his father went; everyone expects to be better than he was born and every generation has one big impulse in its heart—to exceed all the other generations of the past in all the things that make life worth living.
—William Allen White (1868–1944) American Journalist, Author, Editor
Tradition means handing on all that is of value to the next generation.
—Henry Lewis Bullen (1857–1938) Australian-American Librarian, Printer
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