.

Quotes From Yesteryear

We love those quotes of yore which show that the old ways were best and would work today or that things have(not) changed or whatever is significant for the discussion of the day.
Well, those quotes may be more wishful thinking than accurate.
Quotes can change with time to fit the times.
A misquote here,,,, a slight word modification for political correctness there,,,,,, and after a period of time, the original speaker would ask::::::: "Who said that?"
I went looking from scratch for the old, oft-quoted story about youths not respecting their elders and I found quite a few versions.
It was Socrates (he gets the credit) and he said it during his life, before his birth or after his death.

Or maybe it wasn't him ................Whatever/whoever/whomever.

*************************************************

Concern about the behaviour of young people is nothing new. Socrates is quoted as saying:::

The young people of today love luxury. They have bad manners, they scoff at authority and lack respect for their elders. Children nowadays are really tyrants, they no longer stand up when their elders come into the room where they are sitting, they contradict their parents, chat together in the presence of adults, eat gluttonously and tyrannise their teachers.

"Youth today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, no respect for older people, and talk nonsense when they should be working. Young people do not stand up any longer when adults enter the room. They contradict their parents, talk too much in company, guzzle their food, lay their legs on the table and tyrannize their elders."
Socrates

"Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority - they show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food and tyrannize teachers."

"Youth today have detestable manners, flout authority, and have no respect for their elders. What kind of awful creatures will they be when they grow up?"

"I am very worried about the younger generation. The youth of today is ill-mannered, ill-bred, and shows little respect for their elders. I fear to trust them with the future."

Children today love luxury too much. They have execrable manners, flaunt authority, have no respect for their elders. They no longer rise when their parents or teachers enter the room. What kind of awful creatures will they be when they grow up?"

"From the day your child is born, you must teach him to do things. Children today love luxury too much. They have detestable manners, flout authority; have no respect for their elders. They no longer rise when their parents and teachers enter the room. What kind of awful creatures will they be when they grow up?"

Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority - they show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food and tyrannize teachers.

"The youth of today is rude, obnoxious, rebellious, lazy and have no respect for their elders."

============================================

Most references seem to put his life around the timeframe of 469 or 470 BC to 399 or 398 BC and gererally put the quote at 400 or 399BC.
A couple of those quotes mentioned a time of 300BC or 500BC which would make his quote decades before or decades after his life. ------- Talented guy!.

============================================

Then again, scholars have tried to find an verifiable source and that did not turn out so hot either.
There is real doubt that he ever said it at all.

Socrates on youth nowadays .........(from another website)

A question which arises periodically on alt.quotations is for the full text and the source of the "ancient" writing complaining about the bad manners of youth nowadays. It is frequently suggested that Socrates coined the material (almost certainly not true) although it is occasionally attributed to Roman, Babylonian or other ancient sources.

The following material is courtesy of D.P.B. Smith, Jerry Melin, and William Waterhouse (with some discussion also from Dave Bostock, Daniel T. Earl, and Kurt Foster):

There are plenty of fake quotations around, and some of them have been around for much more than thirty years. Any direct quotation from "Socrates" is pretty suspect in the first place, since all we know about Socrates is what others wrote about him -- no written work by him has survived.

(From Jerry Melin) The book Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations by Ralph Keyes (p. 20) states:

...the mayor of Amsterdam attributed this observation to Socrates: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in lace of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." This wisdom from the grave was subsequently reported in the New York Times and reprinted widely. After Malcolm Forbes included Socrates's [sic] words in a Forbes magazine editorial entitled "Youth," his research staff went crazy trying to prove their authenticity. They contacted a wide range of librarians, classicists, and other experts on Socrates. None knew of any source for the passage. The researchers finally called Amsterdam's mayor, Gijsbert van Hall. Van Hall said he'd seen the lines by Socrates in a Dutch book whose title he could not recall. There the search ended. "We suspect," Forbes's [sic] researchers concluded, ". . . that Socrates never did make those cracks about Athenian youth."


.
.
.