My Life In Word

~by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind.  
It is not a matter of red 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.  

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,  
of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease.  
This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty.  
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;  
people grow old by deserting their ideals. 

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  
Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair— 
these are the long, long years that bow the head  
and turn the growing spirit back to dust. 

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder;  
the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts;  
the undaunted challenge of events,  
the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next,  
and the joy in the game of life. 

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 men and from the Infinite—so long are you young. 
When the wires are all down and the central places of your heart are covered with the 
snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, 
then are you grown old, indeed! 

---

This piece is most commonly attributed to Samuel Ullman.

It comes from his prose poem Youth, written in the early 20th century. Although Ullman was not widely known during his lifetime, this text gained lasting recognition later, particularly after it was popularized by Douglas MacArthur, who admired it deeply and reportedly kept a copy in his office.

So while the passage is often mistaken for a speech, a motivational essay, or even a biblical or philosophical text, it is in fact a prose poem by Samuel Ullman, centered on youth as a state of mind rather than a measure of age.

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