Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy¹（蔷薇色的） cheeks, red lips and supple² knees,  it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor³ of the emotions.it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

 

Youth means a tempera-mental 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.

 

Years may wrinkle（起皱） the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being's heart the lure⁴ of wonder,the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and the joy of the game ofliving. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless⁵ station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, you and I will remain young.

 

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism⁶, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are upto catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may have young heart at 80.

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