To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.

It’s hard nowadays to get people to believe things. At least good things.

I'm not young enough to know everything.

One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has a custom them to obedience and experience has made them cautious in conversation with their teachers.

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

It’s hard not to be impatient with the absurdity of the young; they tell us that two and two make four as though it had never occurred to us, and they’re disappointed if we can’t share their surprise when they have discovered that a hen lays an egg. There’s a lot of nonsense in their ranting and raving, but it’s not all nonsense. One ought to sympathize with them; one ought to do one’s best to understand. One has to remember how much has to be forgotten and how much has to be learnt when for the first time one faces life. It’s not very easy to give up one’s ideals, and the brute facts of every day are bitter pills to swallow. The spiritual conflicts of adolescence can be very severe and one can do little to resolve them.

It is so easy to convince others; it is so difficult to convince oneself.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible — and achieve it, generation after generation.

The very young are not ready for much knowledge. It must be given to them slowly, in proportion to their years of life. One must first live before he can safely know.

❞ إذا نَشَأْتَ بين أشخاص لا يثقون بالعلماء، فقد تكتسب ميلًا لتجاهل الأدلة التجريبية والوثوق بالنظريات غير المُثبَتة ❝

One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has accustomed them to obedience, and experience has made them cautious in their conversation with their teachers. Will you not draw from this the fine maxim that one should not scold children too much, but should make them trustful, so that they will not conceal their stupidities from us?

The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are.