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
Eighteen might look at thirty-four through a rising mist of adolescence; but twenty-two would see thirty-eight with discerning clarity.
—Unknown
Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
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
Coolidge was known for his terse speech and reticence. A woman bet her friend that she could get Coolidge to speak to her, which was something he was reluctant to do. She went up to him and said: “Hello, Mr. President, I bet my friend that I could get you to say three words to me”. “You lose,” Coolidge replied dryly, and walked away.
—Unknown
Our choices do not begin with an action,
They begin with an idea.
—Unknown
Amongst democratic nations, each generation is a new people.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
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
We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free of their authority.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to change often.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
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
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
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
The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror’s booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
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
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
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, Radical, Inventor
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Life is hard. Next to what?
—Unknown
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 Editor, Politician, Author
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
One day of pleasure is worth two of sorrow.
—Unknown
You will not find what you do not live.
—Unknown
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
The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
Tradition is not a fetish to be prayed to-but a useful record of experiences. Time should bring improvement-but not all old things are worthless. We are served by both the moderns and the ancients. The balanced man is he who clings to the best in the old-and appropriates the desirable in the new.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
If you believe in yourself, then nothing can stop you from achieving what you believe in.
—Unknown
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
A match-stick has a head, but it does not have a brain.
—Unknown
The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
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
To hope is not to demand.
—Unknown
Adversity comes with instruction in its hand.
—Unknown
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
Success isn’t the opposite of failure. A runner may come in last, but if he beats his record, he succeeds.
—Unknown
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Recently I labeled the argument-that 18-year-olds were old enough to vote if they were old enough to fight-a perfect example of a non sequitur. This precipitated a spirited discussion by two of my sons at the dinner table; (said) our 15-year-old, Tim: “Pop, fellow at 18 today are a lot smarter than your generation was at 18, and for sure smarter than teenagers were when voting-age requirements were first set in law”. His older brother Bob elucidated: “Maybe not smarter, but certainly better informed, more knowledgeable…. More guys in school and college have helped, but primarily the boob tube has done it”.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
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
A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
If deeply based in wisdom, even anger is allowed.
—Hans Taeger
The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
Older generations are living proof that younger generations can survive their lunacy.
—Cullen Hightower (b.1923) American Humorist
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
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