I should be of opinion that our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ us early enough.

This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter.
For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are ever like to be, and as capable then as ever.

A soul that has not by that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after come to proof.

The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have of vigorous and fine, within that term or never, "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, A pene que picque jamai," ["If the thorn does not prick at its birth, 'twill hardly ever prick at all."] as they say in Dauphin.
Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the very lives of the same men.

May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great rival Scipio?
The better half of their lives they lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, 'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of themselves.