Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

A birthday is a good time to begin a new; throwing away the old habits, as you would old clothes, and never putting them again.

Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds.

Genius--the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being.

The richest minds need not large libraries.

Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons.

Truth is sensitive and jealous of the least encroachment upon its sacredness.

Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly, nor need we but love them devotedly to become members of an immortal fraternity, superior to accident or change.

A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women.

When one becomes indifferent to women, to children, and young people., he may know that he is superannuated, and has withdrawn from whatsoever is sweetest and purest in human existence.

Good-humor, gay spirits, are the liberators, the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchemy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers.

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

Thought means life, since those who do not think so do not live in any high or real sense. Thinking makes the man.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.

None can teach admirably if not loving his task.