Youth Is Wasted On The Young

The exact phrasing does not appear in any of Shaw's published writings, but Quote Investigator found the earliest documented attribution in a 1931 newspaper account of a spoken exchange. When asked what he thought was the most beautiful thing in the world, Shaw reportedly replied: "Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world — and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children." The shorter version circulating today was condensed from that response. The closest written parallel in Shaw's own work appears in Maxims for Revolutionists (1903): "Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing."