W. B. Yeats on youth

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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