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“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 vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of deep springs of life.
“Youth means temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. “This often exists in a man of 60 more than in a boy of 20. Nobody grows older merely by a number of years. We grow older by deserting our ideals.
“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. “Worry, fear, self-distrust bow the heart and turn the spirit back to dust.
“Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living.
“In the centre 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 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 20; but as long as the aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope that you may die young at 80.”
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