"Age considers; youth ventures"
About this Quote
Tagore’s line lands like a gentle rebuke wrapped in balance: two short clauses, two verbs, two life stages, no wasted breath. “Age considers; youth ventures” isn’t advice so much as a compressed social diagnosis. The semicolon matters. It doesn’t merely connect; it holds the pair in tension, suggesting a necessary (and slightly tragic) division of labor between caution and risk.
Tagore wrote in a world where “age” wasn’t just biology but authority: elders, institutions, empires, tradition. To “consider” is to deliberate, yes, but also to calculate consequences and preserve order. It implies a mind trained by loss, compromise, and the memory of outcomes. “Youth ventures” counters with motion and appetite. Venture is not reckless joy; it’s exposure to uncertainty, a step into markets, politics, love, art - arenas where failure is the entry fee.
The subtext is that societies stagnate when “consideration” becomes an alibi for inaction, and they implode when “venture” turns into disdain for experience. Tagore, a poet shaped by the currents of Indian modernity and anti-colonial awakening, knew both temptations: the elders’ careful accommodation and the young’s impatience to break history open. The line works because it refuses to flatter either camp. Age is not wisdom; it’s pause. Youth is not purity; it’s risk.
It also smuggles in a quiet hope: that progress depends on the friction between these instincts, not the victory of one.
Tagore wrote in a world where “age” wasn’t just biology but authority: elders, institutions, empires, tradition. To “consider” is to deliberate, yes, but also to calculate consequences and preserve order. It implies a mind trained by loss, compromise, and the memory of outcomes. “Youth ventures” counters with motion and appetite. Venture is not reckless joy; it’s exposure to uncertainty, a step into markets, politics, love, art - arenas where failure is the entry fee.
The subtext is that societies stagnate when “consideration” becomes an alibi for inaction, and they implode when “venture” turns into disdain for experience. Tagore, a poet shaped by the currents of Indian modernity and anti-colonial awakening, knew both temptations: the elders’ careful accommodation and the young’s impatience to break history open. The line works because it refuses to flatter either camp. Age is not wisdom; it’s pause. Youth is not purity; it’s risk.
It also smuggles in a quiet hope: that progress depends on the friction between these instincts, not the victory of one.
Quote Details
| Topic | Youth |
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