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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #youth
There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive. ↗
سماعاً بني العرب الاكرمين ... اُباة التواني حماة الذمم أفيقوا فمن نام عن حقه... عراه الأذى ولواه العدم رعى الله شعباً يريد العلى... ويطلبها تحت خفق العلم إذا لم نقم قومة حرة... ونرجع عهدا طواه القدم فأين الفخار الذي ندعي... وأين الإباء وأين الكرم فتى الشعر هذا مجال قرير... فنادي الإباء ونادي الشيم ونادي الشباب كبار النفوس... ونادي الشباب عماد الأمم فلا أمل اليوم إلا بهم... لأن الشباب عماد الأمم وقل لبني العُرب لا تيأسوا... فإن الهموم ستحُي الهمم وإن المقام على الضيم عار... ولا يغسل العار إلا بدم ولابد من نهضة للعلى...بها ترفع العرب ذاك العلم ↗
We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn’t sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can’t fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don’t stand a chance. We’re mired in gravity, we’re earthbound. We’re ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no. ↗
It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. ↗
#i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings #maya-angelou #racism #rage #youth
When a tree is polled, it will sprout new shoots nearer its roots. A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginnings and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree. ↗
#hermann-hesse #maturity #roots #soul #youth
Youth is an intoxication without wine, someone says. Life is an intoxication. The only sober man is the melancholiac, who, disenchanted, looks at life, sees it as it really is, and cuts his throat. If this be so, I want to be very drunk. The great thing is to live, to clutch at our existence and race away with it in some great and enthralling pursuit. Above all, I must beware of all ultimate questions- they are too maddeningly unanswerable- let me eschew philosophy and burn Omar. ↗
