In a world as empirical as ours, a youngster who does not know what he is good at will not be sure what he is good for.
Not only do most people accept violence if it is perpetuated by legitimate authority, they also regard violence against certain kinds of people as inherently legitimate, no matter who commits it.
If a people have no word for something, either it does not matter to them or it matters too much to talk about.
It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving.
All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.
Part of the American dream is to live long and die young.
Every major industrial society believes it has a serious youth problem.
Romance, like alcohol, should be enjoyed but must not be allowed to become necessary.
Most Americans would say that they disapproved of violence. But what they really mean is that they believe it should be the monopoly of the state.
Adolescents tend to be passionate people, and passion is no less real because it is directed toward a hot-rod, a commercialized popular singer, or the leader of a black-jacketed gang.
No American is prepared to attend his own funeral without the services of highly skilled cosmeticians. Part of the American dream, after all, is to live long and die young.
The examined life has always been pretty well confined to a privileged class.
Human life is a continuous thread which each of us spins to his own pattern, rich and complex in meaning. There are no natural knots in it. Yet knots form, nearly always in adolescence.
The teenager seems to have replaced the Communist as the appropriate target for public controversy and foreboding.
It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.
Only science can hope to keep technology in some sort of moral order.
What is learned in high school, or for that matter anywhere at all, depends far less on what is taught than on what one actually experiences in the place.
Those who love the young best stay young longer.
Juvenile delinquency serves many purposes, including that of providing sadistic adults with fantasies suited to their special tastes.
What we all must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.