N.P.Willis won lasting fame as a poet before leaving college.
Macaulay was a celebrated author before he was twenty-three.

Luther was but twenty-nine when he nailed his famous thesis to the door of the bishop and defied the pope.

Nelson was a lieutenant in the British navy before he was twenty.

He was but forty-seven when he received his death wound at Trafalgar.

Charles the Twelfth was only nineteen when he gained the battle of Narva; at thirty-six Cortes was the conqueror of Mexico; at thirty-two Clive had established the British power in India.
Hannibal, the greatest of military commanders, was only thirty when, at Cannae, he dealt an almost annihilating blow at the Republic of Rome; and Napoleon was only twenty-seven when, on the plains of Italy, he out-generaled and defeated, one after another, the veteran marshals of Austria.
Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men who have passed the allotted limit of life.