Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.

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 your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart a love of wonder the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life.

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, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Whether 60 or 16, 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 God, so long are you young.

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 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind.