In 1923 the “Wall Street Journal” credited King Oscar II of Sweden with a version of the remark using the word “socialist” instead of “républicain” or “republican”.
By 1929 the saying had inspired the title of a play: “Before You’re 25” by Kenyon Nicholson which opened in New York and received a lukewarm review by a well-known drama critic:
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BUT: the one I like best is playwright george bernard shaw’s version, which basically subverts the meaning you intend…
… a thematically connected statement was made by George Bernard Shaw when he delivered a speech at the University of Hong Kong in 1933:
If you don’t begin to be a revolutionist at the age of twenty then at fifty you will be an impossible old fossil. If you are a red revolutionary at the age of twenty you have some chance of being up to date when you are forty.
So, yeah, you botched not only the attribution of the quote, but its probable actual meaning, which is, move somewhat to the middle from your youthful extreme, or risk becoming a useless old fart who’s stuck in a fairy tale past conservative fantasy land that doesn’t and shouldnt exist.
No one wants to be an “impossible old fossil”, right.
maybe itd be better for you to stay in so cal, where the youth culture, the sun and salt air, the vibrant populace and culture that INFLUENCES THE ENTIRE WORLD has a chance of keeping you out of fossildom!
let me ask you this; if me and Flyer can acquire the international exclusive rights to the property BEFORE YOU’RE 25, the play, would you be willing to finance a production at a local theatre? I can guarantee you 35% of the proceeds from any subsequent movie deal.
I guess at heart I am PROUD of california and hate when people piss on it. Retirement fantasies are for the old, the dying, the fossils.
