If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.

We talk about Christmas traditionally as the season of good cheer, but I don't think that sort of Dickensian jollity really cuts the mustard in prison. I tend to take a slightly different slant; I describe it as the season of hope.

Youth's the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.

To me it seems that youth is like spring, an overpraised season — delightful if it happen to be a favoured one, but in practice very rarely favoured and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

For me this is a season of hope -- new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few — new hope. And this is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

Youth is the proper time for love,
And age is virtue's season.

Youth is like spring, an overpraised season.

How shall I describe Youth, the time of contradictions and anomalies? The fiercest radicalisms, the most dogged conservatisms, irrepressible gayety, bitter melancholy,—all these moods are equally part of that showery spring-time of life.

There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

But let the word go forth from this time and place that the torch has been passed on to a new generation. A generation that is acutely aware of its unique destiny as the hope of our long-suffering people. A generation that is desperately challenged by the rapid developments taking place all over the world, a generation that is encouraged by all the possibilities of technology, a generation that is determined to earn its place in history; a generation of hope.

Youth comes but once in a lifetime

Teenagers give me hope. We write them off so often. But I'm seeing a lot of things in this generation that’s coming up that gives me a lot of hope for the future. So I tell them when I'm in the old folks home, I think I can relax because I think you guys are going to do a great job.