ladies and gentlemen , good afternoon! i’m very glad to stand here and give you a short speech. today my topic is “youth”. i hope you will like it , and found the importance in your youth so that more cherish it.
first i want to ask you some questions:
1、do you know what is youth?
2、how do you master your youth?
youth
youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind ; it is not rosy cheeks , red lips and supple knees, it is a matter of the emotions : it is the freshness ; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life .
youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite , for adventure over the love of ease. this often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20 . nobody grows old merely by a number of years . we grow old by deserting our ideals.
years wrinkle the skin , but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul . worry , fear , self –distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust .
whether 60 of 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’s a wireless station : so long as it receives messages of beauty , hope ,cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long as you are young .
when the aerials are down , and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old ,even at 20 , but as long as your aerials are up ,to catch waves of optimism , there is hope you may die young at 80.