Indeed, I am sometimes inclined to doubt whether some men consider youth as rational and intelligent beings, with minds capable of expansion, and talents formed for usefulness.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
Even youngish men can acquire wisdom as time goes by.
Young people are more intelligent and sophisticated.
Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.
The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, i.e. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed.
To me all men are boy-men. I don't know any man that's actually mature.
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
There's nothing more arrogant or conceited than youth, and there's nothing other than machinery that can replace youth.
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.