Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly.

A work of real merit finds favor at last.

A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers.

Where women are, the better things are implied if not spoken.

The traveled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.

A sip is the most than mortals are permitted from any goblet of delight.

Education may work wonders as well in warping the genius of individuals as in seconding it.

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples.

My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages.

Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity.

Inspiration must find answering inspiration.

A true teacher defends his students against his own personal influences.

Anger is the resentment of the animal, and gentle blood alone makes the gentleman.

One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books.

Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression

Traveling is no fool's errand to him who carries his eyes and itinerary along with him.

Our favorites are few; since only what rises from the heart reaches it, being caught and carried on the tongues of men wheresoever love and letters journey.

Who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.

Divination seems heightened and raised to its highest power in woman.

Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially.

Friendship is a plant that loves the sun, thrives ill under clouds.

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more;--book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also.

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.

First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.

Time is one's best friend, teaching best of all the wisdom of silence.

Nor do we accept, as genuine the person not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity and self-respect. Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. None are truly great without this ornament.

Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written.

No one is promiscuous in his way of dying. A man who has decided to hang himself will never jump in front of a train.

Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams.

What higher praise can we bestow on any one than to say of him that he harbors another's prejudices with a hospitality so cordial as to give him, for the time, the sympathy next best to, if indeed it be not edification in, charity itself. For what disturbs more and distracts mankind than the uncivil manners that cleave man from man?

One does not see his thought distinctly till it is reflected in the image of another's.

Nature is thought immersed in matter. . .

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

A good style fits like a good costume.

All unrest is but the struggle of the soul to reassure herself of her inborn immortality.

Civilization degrades many in order to exalt the few.

Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well.

Nor is a day lived if the dawn is left out of it, with the prospects it opens. Who speaks charmingly of nature or of mankind, like him who comes bibulous of sunrise and the fountains of waters?

We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.

Life is one, religion one, creeds are many and diverse.

Equanimity is the gem in virtue's chaplet, and St. Sweetness the loveliest in her calendar.

The more one endeavors to sound the depths of his ignorance the deeper the chasm appears.

Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure.

Easy come, easy go... "Achieve-everything-while-doing-nothing" schemes don't work, they are just not logical

Enthusiasm is essential to the successful attainment of any high endeavor.

Of gifts, there seems none more becoming to offer a friend than a beautiful book.