What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?

Meaning of the quote

The quote suggests that youth is a time when people are not yet fully developed or ready to be judged by others. It means that young people are still growing and learning, and they should not be criticized or treated as if they are already mature and experienced. The quote encourages us to be patient and understanding with young people as they navigate the challenges of growing up.

About Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh was an acclaimed English writer known for his novels, biographies, and travel books. He was a master of prose and a prolific journalist, with works like Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy cementing his status as one of the great 20th-century literary figures.

More about the author

More quotes from Evelyn Waugh

News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

I haven’t been to sleep for over a year. That’s why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn’t sleep.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Other nations use ‘force’; we Britons alone use ‘Might’.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in “Old Maid”; the player who is finally left with it has lost.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Don’t hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

It is a curious thing… that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

I put the words down and push them a bit.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

There is a species of person called a ‘Modern Churchman’ who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

Evelyn Waugh

British writer and journalist (1903-1966)