I love this and share it with you, just because…

youth is not a time of life ~ it is a state of mind:  it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.

nobody grows old merely by living a number of years:  people grow old only by deserting their ideals.  years wrinkle away the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  worry, doubt, self distrust, fear and despair–these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars and starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenging of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what’s next and the joy of the game of life.  you are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.  so long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the infinite, so long as you are young.

anonymous