Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips, and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

       Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

       Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-doubt bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

       Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike curiosity of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and mine there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, you are young.

       When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you have grown old, even at twenty. But as long as your aerials are up, to catch the optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

(This poem was written by Samuel Ullman and General MacArthur was inspired by it and carried it wherever he went. Because of the fondness of General MacArthur for this poem, it was called General MacArthur’s Credo.)