Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Young people can either succumb to challenges or learn to adjust and thrive in different situations.
This quote by Samuel Butler highlights the remarkable ability of young individuals to either face significant challenges head-on, potentially leading to overwhelming circumstances, or to adapt and modify their behavior and attitudes in response to the ever-changing environment around them. This adaptability is a crucial trait that enables growth and resilience, emphasizing the power of flexibility in the face of adversity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of adaptability in education, this quote can illustrate how young students can thrive in new learning environments.
More from Samuel Butler
All quotes βTo know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
Similar quotes
We can't throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.
It is time for blacks to begin the shift from a wartime to a peacetime identity, from fighting for opportunity to the seizing of it.
With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it.
It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law - for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.
I want to go home. Then he mentally underlined the last sentence three times, rewrote it in huge letters in red ink, and circled it before putting a number of exclamation marks next to it in his mental margin.
The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.