Of Youth & Age – Francis Bacon
- Youth is a relative term
- Your mind is the real key
- But the youth tend to have a wilder imagination
- But some people are a bit too crazy & passionate to do anything productive
- Look at Caesar & Septimius Severus
- Septimius was known to be a wild child
- But was considered a very good emperor
- Septimius was known to be a wild child
- Some rulers like Augustus, Cosimus of Florence and others
- were pretty calm in their youths
- Younger men are better to create than judge
- Better to do than advise
- Better for new things than tradition
- Age gives us experience
- Youth are usually impatient, passionate & careless
- Bite off more than they can chew
- More prone to extremes – makes more problems
- unlikely to apologize for stepping on people’s feet
- Old men say “no” to too much
- delay too much, risk too little, give up too soon
- Best is to use the both for their own good
- The balance of both – one helps the other
- Young men learn better
- Old men teach and act better
- The young haven’t had time to develop their intelligence & inner strength
- They haven’t had time to appreciate the subtleties of life
- The young have the opportunity to use their enthusiasm for speech & rhetoric
- It looks silly on old people