JONAH GOLDBERG AND TURGENEV ON YOUTH

JONAH GOLDBERG:




IVAN TURGENEV:

Oh Youth: Little dost thou care for anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the universe — even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, ‘I alone am living — look you!’— but the days fly by all the while, and vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes, like wax in the sun, like snow.... 

And, perhaps, the whole secret of thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able to think thou WILT do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the winds, the forces which thou couldst not make other use of....