Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently

The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently

The surest way of ruining a youth is to teach him to respect those who think as he does more highly than those who think differently from him.

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial — as the real artists of life do.