Youth/Generations

*“The world is passing through troublesome times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes as wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are foolish and immodest, and unwomanly in speech, behavior and dress.”

 

— Peter the Monk, 1274 AD in the Church of Scotland Journal.

 

*“We’re like our parents’ generation, in my opinion. We’re getting married, having kids, settling down, buying houses…. I think we’re like a lot of other generations that approach middle age.”

 

— Tim Nekritz, Gen Xer

 

“From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.”

 

— Will Durant (1885-1981), American historian

 

“We see an enormous interest in the world and God’s purposes in the world in young people. They have something to offer. And, I don’t believe that our old paradigm for missions is sufficient for what it is that God wants to do among his people.”

 

— Jim Tebbe, InterVarsity VP & Director of Mission

 

“I too have had my dreams: ay, [and have] known indeed the crowded visions of a fiery youth which haunt me still.”

 

— Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), British poet and playwright

 

“I had to e-mail you because your message rings so true. I burn for influence from older, stronger Christian men — just to spend time with them…. I’m desperate for another man or men to draw on. And I’m not the only one who sees it, either. The students around me are starved for influence outside the world of 18-22 year olds.”

 

— Email from a male college student to a Christian leader

 

*“Young men and women are being enticed to think of themselves as two selves, one that is mind and reason in the classroom and another self, ‘after hours,’ that is all body and passion. They begin to imagine-though few entirely believe it-that they can use (that is, abuse) their bodies as they please for pleasure, and that choosing to do so has nothing to do with their academic studies or future lives. In reality they are following a formula for self-disintegration and failure.”

 

— Vigen Guorian, Loyola University professor

 

*“Adults have their own issues and their own problems, which are understandable, and some adults are working through their own adolescent issues.”

 

— Christian Smith, UNC-Chapel Hill sociology professor

 

“Never before in our country’s history has a generation been so empowered, so wealthy, so privileged — and yet so empty.”

 

— Ben Shapiro (b. 1984), Harvard Law School student and author of “Porn Generation”

 

“The strongest are those who renounce their own times and become a living part of those yet to come. The strongest and the rarest.”

 

— Milovan Djilas (1911-1995), Yugoslav communist author-politician

 

“Each new generation born is, in effect, an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”

 

— Thomas Sowell, American author in “A Conflict of Visions”

 

“Youth is a period of idealism. The Communists attract young people by appealing directly to that idealism. Too often, others have failed either to appeal to it or to use it and they are the losers as a consequence. We have no cause to complain if, having neglected the idealism of youth, we see others come along, take it, and harness it to their cause — and against our own.”

 

— Douglas Hyde (d. 1996), former editor of the Communist newspaper “Daily Worker” (London), who converted to Catholicism in 1966, in “Dedication and Leadership”, p. 17

 

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future!”

 

— Adolf Hitler, (1889-1945), German Nazi leader during WW2 speaking at the Reichsparteitag in 1935

 

“After the age of 80, everything reminds you of something else.”

 

— Lowell Thomas (1892-1981), American author and broadcaster