© 2010 Samuel Ullman
© 2010 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Youth is not a period of life, it is a state of mind, an effect of the will, a quality of the imagination, an emotional intensity, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort.
We do not become old by having lived a certain number of years, we become old because we have deserted our ideal.
The years wrinkle the skin, giving up one’s ideal wrinkles the soul.
Worries, doubts, fears and despairs are the enemies that slowly make us lean towards the earth and become dust before death.
Young is he who is astonished and marveled.
He asks like the insatiable child: “And then”?
He defies events and finds joy in the game of life.
You are as young as your faith.
As old as your self-confidence.
As young as your hope.
As old as your dejection.
You will stay young as long as you remain receptive.
Receptive to what is beautiful, good and great.
Receptive to messages from nature, man and infinity.
If one day your heart were to be bitten by pessimism and eaten away by cynicism, may God have pity on your old soul!
Samuel Ullman