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

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exits in a man of 60, more than a boy of 20.nobody grows merely by the number of years; we grow old by deserting our ideas. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust1 bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike 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 infinite, so long as you are young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.

青春不是年華，而是心境;青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意志、宏偉的想象、熾熱的感情;青春是生命的深泉在涌流。

青春氣貫長虹，勇銳蓋過怯弱，進(jìn)去壓倒茍安，如此銳氣，二十后生有之，六旬男子則更多見。年年有加，并非垂老;理想丟棄，方墮暮年。

歲月悠悠，衰微只及肌膚;熱忱拋卻，頹唐必至靈魂。煩憂、惶恐、喪失自信，定使心靈扭曲，意氣如灰。

無論年屆花甲，抑或二八芳齡，心中皆有生命之歡樂，奇跡之誘惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一臺天線，只要你從天上人間接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的信號，你就青春永駐，風(fēng)華常存。

一旦天線倒塌，銳氣被冰雪覆蓋，玩世不恭、自暴自棄油然而生，幾十年方二十，實(shí)已垂老矣;然則只要豎起天線，捕捉樂觀的信號，你就有望在八十高齡告別塵寰時(shí)仍覺得年輕。

[編者按：一篇不足500字的短文，半個(gè)多世紀(jì)以來一直產(chǎn)生著轟動效應(yīng);美國麥克阿瑟將軍生前將其視為座右銘，日本許多名流將其珍藏于隨身攜帶的錢夾之中……]