Youth

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 boy 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 wonders, 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, courage and power from man and from the Infinite, so long as you are young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you've 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

青春不是年岁，而是一种心态

它与桃面，丹唇，柔膝无关；

而是意志，创意，激情;

它是永不枯竭的生命之泉。

青春是自强不息，战胜怯懦，是勇往直前，不图苟安。

没人因年岁增长而变老。

只因丧失理想而衰颓。

流逝的岁月也许会在肌肤留下痕迹，丢失的热情却会让灵魂泛起褶皱。

忧虑、惶恐、自我怀疑，会使灵魂扭曲，意气如灰。

无论年少或年长，每个人都应当充满好奇，像孩子般去探索新鲜的事物，去追求人生的乐趣。

你我的心中都应有座无线电台；

只要不断地接受来自人间和苍穹的美感、希望、勇气和力量，我们就会永葆青春。

倘若你收起天线，使自己的心灵蒙上玩世不恭的霜雪和悲观厌世的冰凌，即使你年方二十，你也垂垂老矣；倘若你已经八十高龄，临于辞世，若竖起天线去收听乐观进取的电波，你仍会青春焕发。

《青春》这篇美文在世界各国广为流传，不少世界名人都将其视为座右铭，如麦克阿瑟将军、松下电器创始人松下幸之助等。