Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
It reminds me of an article 《Life is about choices》.In the article, the author talks about Michael. Michael is a guy who always stays postive no matter what happens to him.
Each morning Michael wakes up and says to himself:"Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood." He always chooses the positive side of life.
Once "Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling off 60 feet from a communications tower." You can imagine that he was badly injured. Paramedics rused him the hospital and he was wheeled into the operation room . When the nurse asked Michael what he was allegic to, he answered " Gravity." I really admire Michael for his courage and sense of humor. I wish that I could be like him. I am just a too moody woman.
Have a nice weekend,
Rebecca
缘自知音 发表评论于
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind;......it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Hope we would understand it better when we get older, right, Rebecca?
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Samuel Ullman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian. He is best known today for his poem Youth which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur.
Born in 1840 at Hechingen, Germany to Jewish parents, Ullman immigrated with his family to America to escape discrimination at the age of eleven. The Ullman family settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi. In 1884, Ullman moved to the young city of Birmingham, Alabama, and was immediately placed on the city's first board of education.
In his retirement, Ullman found more time for one of his favorite passions - writing letters, essays and poetry. His poems and poetic essays cover subjects as varied as love, nature, religion, family, the hurried lifestyle of a friend, and living "young." It was General Douglas MacArthur who facilitated Ullman's popularity as a poet - he hung a framed copy of a version of Ullman's poem "Youth" on the wall of his office in Tokyo and often quoted from the poem in his speeches.