Amos Bronson Alcott's Quotes

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

The less routine the more life.

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

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

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

Our ideals are our better selves.

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.

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.

Observation more than books and experience more than persons, are the prime educators.

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

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

Who knows, the mind has the key to all things besides.

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.