The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place 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.

Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
(Spurious)

Often claimed as a passage from Socrates via Plato, but actually a paraphrase from a synthesis of complaints about youth in antiquity by Kenneth John Freeman, in his 1907 Cambridge dissertation "Schools of Hellas: an Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 BC." See here for more discussion.

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 19-Feb-21
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