Generation Quotes

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris-
ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be
expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have
been far more impressed by the bad manners of par-
ents to children than by those of children to parents.
Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family
meals where the father or mother treated their
grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered
to any other young people, would simply have termi-
nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat-
ters which the children understand and their elders
don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions,
ridicule of things the young take seriously some-
times of their religion insulting references to their
friends, all provide an easy answer to the question
"Why are they always out? Why do they like every
house better than their home?" Who does not prefer
civility to barbarism?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“We’re not the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation anymore. We’re not even the Next-New-Thing Generation. We’re the Soon-to-Be-Obsolete Kids, and we’ve crowded in here to hide from the future and the past. We know what’s up – the future looms straight ahead like a black wrought-iron gate and the past is charging after us like a badass Doberman, only this one doesn’t have any letup in him.”
― Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

“Before this generation lose the wisdom, one advice - read books.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley

“Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our generation you shall find.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“My hair would continue to gray, and then one day, it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I'm talking about, would be gone. And that's what immortality means. It means selfishness. My generations belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story

“History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“In this age of ours it's hard to say with certainty that having lived was better than not having been born in the first place.”
― Kenzaburō Ōe, A Personal Matter

“The most unlucky generation is the one which couldn't produce a hero to look upto.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“This entire generation seems to have become pussies, you know? Nobody seems to enjoy themselves much anymore.They are all knocking each other down for enjoying themselves.”
― Lemmy Kilmister

“Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last.”
― Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

“The hands reaching in
among the leaves and spines
were once my mother's.
I've passed them on.
Decades ahead, you'll study your own
temporary hands, and you'll remember.
Don't cry, this is what happens.”
― Margaret Atwood, Dearly

“All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“The journey through another world, beyond bad dreams
beyond the memories of a murdered generation,
cartographed in captivity by bare survivors
makes sacristans of us all.

The old ones go our bail, we oblate preachers of our tribes.
Be careful, they say, don't hock the beads of
kinship agonies; the moire-effect of unfamiliar hymns
upon our own, a change in pitch or shrillness of the voice
transforms the ways of song to words of poetry or prose
and makes distinctions
no one recognizes.
Surrounded and absorbed, we tread like Etruscans
on the edge of useless law; we pray
to the giver of prayer, we give the cane whistle
in ceremony, we swing the heavy silver chain
of incense burners. Migration makes
new citizens of Rome.”
― Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

“Does anyone else day dream about what it would be like if specific age groups just dropped dead all across the world?”
― Christy Leigh Stewart

“If truth is like the terrain, are we the generation who sees it as one who has worn shoes all his life or one who has never worn shoes? Yet still, even if the walk starts out as painful, the experience may be well worth it.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“But a generation that does not aspire to seriousness, to meaning, is unworthy to walk in the shadow of those who have gone before, I mean those who have struggled and surmounted, I mean those who have aspired, I mean Rembrandt, I mean Turner, I mean Michelangelo and Matisse … I mean obviously Rothko.”
― John Logan, Red

“Diese jungen Menschen hatten keine Wünsche, keine Überzeugungen, geschweige denn Ideale, sie strebten keinen bestimmten Beruf an, wollten weder politischen Einfluss noch eine glückliche Familie, keine Kinder, keine Hausiere und keine Heimat, und sehnten sich ebenso wenig nach Abenteuern und Revolten wie nach der Ruhe und dem Frieden des Althergebrachten. Überdies hatten sie aufgehört, Spaß als einen Wert zu betrachten. Freizeit und Nichtfreizeit waren gleichermaßen anstrengend und unterschieden sich in erster Linie durch die Frage, ob man Geld verdiente oder ausgab. Hobbys zum Totschlagen der Zeit waren überflüssig, da die Zeit auch von selbst verging. Fernsehen war langweilig, die Literaturszene tot, und im Kino liefen seit Jahren nur Varianten auf drei oder vier verschiedener Filme. Diskotheken waren etwas für Liebhaber von Dummheit und schlechter Musik, und auf Schostakowitsch konnte man nicht tanzen. Diese Jugend hatte aufgehört, sich für industriell geschneiderte Moden, Identitäten, Heldenfiguren und Feindbilder zu interessieren. Weniger als jede Generation vor ihrer bildete sie eine Generation. Sie war einfach da, die Sippschaft eines interimistischen Zeitalters. ”
― Juli Zeh, Spieltrieb

“There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things: our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks.”
― Thomas Browne

“Wie wohlhabend, wie einflussreich sie waren, wie sie prosperiert hatten unter einer Regierung, die sie beinahe siebzehn Jahre lang verachtet hatten! Talking ‚bout my generation. Diese Tatkraft, dieser unverschämte Dusel! Im Sozialstaat der Nachkriegszeit genährt von Milch und Honig des Staates, danach verwöhnt vom zaghaft-unschuldigen Wohlstand ihrer Eltern, mündig dann in einer Zeit der Vollbeschäftigung mit neuen Universitäten und bunten Taschentüchern, dem augusteischen Zeitalter des Rock ‚n’ Roll, der erschwinglichen Ideale. Als die Leiter hinter ihnen bröckelte, als der Staat seine Zitzen verweigerte und zum Hausdrachen wurde, saßen sie schon im trockenen, konsolidierten sich und ließen sich häusliche nieder, um dieses oder jenes zu bilden – Geschmack, Meinungen, Vermögen.”
― Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

“Palestina ni nchi ya Waisraeli waliyopewa na Mungu wa Yakobo. Hata hivyo, hawakutimiza masharti. Mungu aliwaagiza kuua kila mtu katika nchi ya Kaanani na miji yake yote. Waisraeli, wakiongozwa na Yoshua, waliua watu wengi katika nchi ya Kaanani. Hawakuua kila mtu katika miji ya Ashdodi, Gathi na Ukanda wa Gaza kama walivyoagizwa. Mungu alimwambia Ibrahimu kuwa angempa yeye na uzao wake nchi ya Kaanani kuwa milki yao ya milele, na kuwa Yeye ndiye angekuwa Mungu wao daima. Vita ya Israeli na Palestina itamalizwa na Mungu. Itamalizwa na hekima.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Dear Girls, If he expects you to contribute financially or relies on your parents for financial support, he may not be the right guy for you."

"Dear Boys, if she does not want a lot of children, she may not be the right girl for you.”
― Anupam S Shlok, Decoding Alpha Employees: Catalysts for Growth or Chaos?

“Every second whispers our future. - Aron Micko H.B”
― Aron Micko H.B, At the Back

“This isn’t your fault, you know. It really isn’t. You’ll get through this.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

“At some point every generation is lost. We must be. How else can we find ourselves?”
― Cory Richards, The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within

“Wisdom of today is common sense of tomorrow.”
― Aegelis, Specks of Shadows, Flecks of Light

“The legacy of a generation is written by the boldness of its youth.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“I belong to the Generation X, which I prefer to call The Rolling Stone Generation.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“To nourish hope is to give ourselves and future generations a chance to live in a new model that genuinely honours the legacy transmitted from generation to generation.”
― Niels de Fraguier, Cartography of Inner Worlds: A Journey to Deepen the Meaning of our Lives