Simone de Beauvoir on youth

One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one’s conscience.

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Mark Twain1835–1910“Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington”, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), ed. John Paul

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

Mark Twain1835–1910Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain Project edition, Volume 1 (2010), p. 210