Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matterof 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 thefreshness of the deep springs of life.

   Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity ofthe appetite, for adventure over the love of ease.  This often existsin a man of sixty more than a body of twenty.  Nobody grows old merelyby a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.

   Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles thesoul.  Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spiritback to dust.

   Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart thelure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, andthe joy of the game of living.  In the center of your heart and myheart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages ofbeauty, 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 ofcynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even attwenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves ofoptimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.