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"Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against."
Experience
"That most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man"."
Work
"I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't change the past.''Can't change the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!"
Time
"If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away."
Identity
"Human sympathy has its limits."
Emotion
"That we shall use every discovery of science in the preservation of our children's health goes without saying; but we shall do more than this - we shall give them a free start, not loading them up with our own ideas and experiences, nor advising them to live according to our lights. We were burned in the fire here and there, but - who knows? - fire may not burn our children, and if we warn them away from it they may end by never growing warm. We will not even inflict our cynicism on them as the sentimentality of our fathers was inflicted on us. The most we will do is urge a little doubt, asking that the doubt be exercised on our ideas as well as on all the mortal things in this world."
Parenting
"He found that the business of optimism was no mean task."
Optimism
"Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation" the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true."
Intelligence
"There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we make him pay afterward for his moment of superiority, his moment of impressiveness."
Strength
". . . confirmed libertines don't reform until they're tired . . ."
Behavior
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"Do not lose the enthusiasm of your youth."
Author Name
Personal Development
"She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Young people have limited choices, but they are also useful human resources."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Youth. I don't seek it through another because I have it within; it's a state of mind, a spirit that is free, and a mind that is playful. The shell of my being is altered by the effects of time, but nothing will tarnish a soul that will never forget what its like to experience creation with endless wonder and appreciation. Each time I see the first snowfall of the season I feel it's the first time I've seen it at all."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution - such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight - to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood - no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Your youth is certainly finished and old age has definitely arrived if you feel that you are losing enthusiasm, excitement and energy towards your dreams and goals."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Muoth was right. On growing old, one becomes more contented than in one's youth, which I will not therefore revile, for in all my dreams I hear my youth like a wonderful song which now sounds more harmonious than it did in reality, and even sweeter."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Youth's longing misconceived inconsistency.Those whom I deemedChanged to my kin, the friends of whom I dreamed,Have aged and lost our old affinity:One has to change to stay akin to me."
Author Name
Personal Development
"There is something about the defencelessness of youth that moves me to tears. Youth is so vulnerable. It is so ruthless--so sure. So generous and so demanding."
Author Name
Personal Development
"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."
Author Name
Personal Development
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