Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism.

The less routine the more life.

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

Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.

I consider it the best part of an education to have been born and brought up in the country.

Books are the most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, frankly declaring the author's mind, without offense.

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

Our ideals are our better selves.

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

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

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.

Ignorance is innocence - stupidity comes with experience

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

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

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

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.

Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.

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

Prudence is the footprint of Wisdom.

There is virtue in country houses, in gardens and orchards, in fields, streams and groves, in rustic recreations and plain manners, that neither cities nor universities enjoy.

Fullness is always quiet; agitation will answer for empty vessels only.

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

Memory marks the horizon of our consciousness, imagination its zenith.

I find my past in my present, and from these forecast my future.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

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

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

Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.

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.

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

Many can argue - not many converse.

Time ripens the substance of a life as the seasons mellow and perfect its fruits. The best apples fall latest and keep longest.

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

Enthusiasm imparts itself magnetically and fuses all into one happy and harmonious unity of feeling and sentiment.

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also.

Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance.

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.

Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams.

Hold fast, therefore, O circular philosopher, to thy centre, and drive the globe along its orbit by the momentum of thy thought.

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

Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon; of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.

In the ardor of his enthusiasm, a youth set forth in quest of a man of whom he might take counsel as to his future, but after long search and many disappointments, he came near relinquishing the pursuit as hopeless, when suddenly it occurred to him that one must first be a man to find a man, and profiting by this suggestion, he set himself to the work of becoming himself the man he had been seeking so long and fruitlessly.

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.

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

One's outlook is a part of his virtue.

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

A work of real merit finds favor at last.

Would Shakespeare and Raleigh have done their best, would that galaxy have shone so bright in the heavens had there been no Elizabeth on the throne?

Love is the key to felicity, nor is there a heaven to any who love not. We enter Paradise through its gates only.

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