The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs
Not Thomas Aquinas — a modern paraphraseThomas Aquinasc. 1225–1274 · Dominican friar & theologian
The thought is Aquinas’s, and before him Aristotle’s. Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6 asks “Whether hope abounds in young men and drunkards?” and answers that both are hopeful because they do not see their own shortcomings. The quotable wording, with its punchline about “drowning” failure, appears nowhere in that article and has no documented source.
“The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs” popularly attributed to Thomas Aquinas, but a modern paraphrase. The idea comes from Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6, following Aristotle. The "drowning" line is not in his text.
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Provenance
What Aquinas actually wrote
Work
Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 40, a. 6
Article
“Whether hope abounds in young men and drunkards?”
Translation
Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Second and Revised Edition, 1920
Popular wording
Not found in the article
On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 8) that “drunken men are hopeful”: and (Rhet. ii, 12) that “the young are full of hope.” … Wherefore youths, through inexperience of obstacles and of their own shortcomings, easily count a thing possible; and consequently are of good hope. Two of these causes are also in those who are in drink—viz. heat and high spirits, on account of wine, and heedlessness of dangers and shortcomings. For the same reason all foolish and thoughtless persons attempt everything and are full of hope.
Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6
The real passage is closer to diagnosis than to joke. Aquinas says the young and the drunk are hopeful because they overlook dangers and their own shortcomings. Nothing in the article says the drunk have “drowned” their failures.
Wikiquote’s Talk:Thomas Aquinas ↗ lists the line under “Unsourced”. It is not on the main Aquinas page.
The source of the idea is Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6 ↗, “Whether hope abounds in young men and drunkards?”. It credits youthful hope to “inexperience of obstacles” and drunken hope to “heedlessness of dangers and shortcomings”, with no “drowning”.
Aquinas draws on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book II ↗ (W. Rhys Roberts translation). There the young “are sanguine; nature warms their blood as though with excess of wine; and besides that, they have as yet met with few disappointments.”
The polished modern version keeps circulating as Aquinas’s own words, for example in Catholic Insight (2025) ↗, which gives no citation.
The popular wording has no identifiable source or author, so no copyright status is asserted for it. The excerpt shown above comes from the English Dominican translation of the Summa (Second and Revised Edition, 1920). It was published before 1931 and is therefore in the US public domain.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How a medieval question became a one-liner
The line is a polished modern restatement of a real scholastic article, with a new punchline added. Here is who contributed what.
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The idea (and the question)Thomas Aquinas Paraphrased
He really did ask “Whether hope abounds in young men and drunkards?” and answered yes, in Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6 ↗. But his reasons are inexperience, high spirits and “heedlessness of dangers and shortcomings”. He never says the drunk have drowned their failures.
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The underlying observationsAristotle Earlier source
Aquinas’s article quotes “the Philosopher” for both halves. In the Rhetoric, Book II ↗, the young are sanguine “as though with excess of wine” and have “met with few disappointments”. That is the nearest ancestor of “little experience of failure”.
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The quotable wordingUnknown modern writer No source
The quip-shaped version, with “succeeded in drowning theirs”, has no documented origin. Wikiquote keeps it under “Unsourced” on its talk page ↗, and articles such as Catholic Insight’s ↗ repeat it as Aquinas’s own words without a citation.
✓Aquinas’s real words are “youths, through inexperience of obstacles and of their own shortcomings, easily count a thing possible”, and those in drink share “heedlessness of dangers and shortcomings”. The source is Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6 ↗. The “drowning” punchline is a later addition.
Context
Why the line sticks
Aquinas’s article is one of the more memorable headings in the Summa. In the middle of a sober treatment of hope as a passion, he stops to ask whether youth and drunkenness cause hope. His answer is almost clinical: both groups expect success because they cannot see the obstacles in front of them.
The modern version turns that diagnosis into a joke. The young have not met failure yet, and the drunk have “drowned” theirs. The pun suits a quotation, but it is not medieval. Writers who want Aquinas’s actual point, including the Dominican friars at Dominicana ↗, use it to contrast this reckless hope with the theological virtue of hope.
Youths, through inexperience of obstacles and of their own shortcomings, easily count a thing possible.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
c. 1225–1274 · Dominican friar, theologian & philosopher
Italian Dominican friar and the most influential theologian of the medieval Church, best known for the Summa Theologiae. His treatment of the passions, including hope, builds closely on Aristotle, whom he calls simply “the Philosopher”. That is where the real young-and-drunk passage comes from.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Closest genuine source
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 40, a. 6, “Whether hope abounds in young men and drunkards?” In The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd rev. ed. (1920). The popular “drowning” wording does not appear there.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-most-hopeful-people-in-the-world-are-the-young-and-the/