What is universal, evidently, is confirmation bias. From the linked page, "the quotation is spurious."
I clicked on the link expecting the Socrates quote and was not disappointed. But, if you read the page through to the end, it seems that this quote was made up in by William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson and published in "Personality and Adjustment, p. 277" in 1953. It was popularized in the 1960's to trivialize complaints by the older generation against the hippies. I have believed for a long time that this was a true quote from ancient Greece and it has shaped my world view. I have used this quote in many conversations and I still am hoping the quote is authentically from ancient Greece. I'll have to poke around the internet some to convince myself one way or another.
There were a number of similar quotes in a recent review of Bruce Cannon Gibney’s book on Boomers:
‘And way, way before that, a letter published in a 1771 issue of Town and Country manages to sound laughably familiar, in sentiment at least: “Whither are the manly vigour and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt.”’
I clicked on the link expecting the Socrates quote and was not disappointed. But, if you read the page through to the end, it seems that this quote was made up in by William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson and published in "Personality and Adjustment, p. 277" in 1953. It was popularized in the 1960's to trivialize complaints by the older generation against the hippies. I have believed for a long time that this was a true quote from ancient Greece and it has shaped my world view. I have used this quote in many conversations and I still am hoping the quote is authentically from ancient Greece. I'll have to poke around the internet some to convince myself one way or another.