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
• 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