Did You Know? Poem - A State Of Mind

  • Wednesday, September 22, 2021
  • Jerry Summers

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind.  It is not a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips, and supple knees; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions.  It is a freshness of the deep springs of life.

            Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.  People grow old by deserting their ideals.

            Years wrinkle the skin; but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

            Worry, doubt, self-destruct, fear and despair…these are the long, long years that bow the heart and turn the greening spirit back to dust.

            You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

            In the central place of your heart there is a wireless station.  So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, grandeur, courage, and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

            When the wires are down and all the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old even at twenty and may God have mercy on our soul.”

            -This poem was written by a little-known American businessman and humanitarian, Samuel Ullman.  “Youth” was its title and General Douglas McArthur quoted it so often in speeches that it was reportedly known as “MacArthur’s Creed.”

(Excerpts from “The Little Book of Answers” – Author – Doug Lennox – (2003) – MJF Books – New York, NY 1001.)


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