Oft too the mind well pleased surveys, Its progress from its childish days; Sees how the current upwards ran, And reads the child oer in the man. Lloyd.Epi. to Coleman, Line 17.
Youth, what mans age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know. Denham.On Prudence, Line 225. [The same idea is found in the French proverb, l Homme est toujours l enfant, et l enfant toujours l homme. The man is always the child, and the child is always the man.] (From a Dictionary of Quotations, published by G. G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1799.)
When the man you see You find him what you saw the boy would be, Disguisd a little; but we still behold What pleased, and what offended us of old. Crabbe.Tales of the Hall, Book III.