Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

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

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

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.

Your real influence is measured by your treatment of yourself.

Health, longevity, beauty, are other names for personal purity; and temperance is the regimen for all.

Dignity of manner always conveys a sense of reserved force.

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

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

If the ancients left us ideas, to our credit be it spoken that we moderns are building houses for them -- structures which neither Plato nor Archimedes had dreamed possible.

When one becomes indifferent to women, to children, and young people., he may know that he is superannuated, and has withdrawn from whatsoever is sweetest and purest in human existence.

Friends are the leaders of the bosom, being more ourselves than we are, and we complement our affections in theirs.

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

Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks.

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

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

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

The richest minds need not large libraries.

A good style fits like a good costume.

Every sin provokes its punishment.

The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title-deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions.

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us.

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

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

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.

Many are those who can argue; few are those who can converse

Despair snuffs the sun from the firmament.

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps.

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

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?

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

Every dogma embodies some shade of truth to give it seeming currency.

Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.

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

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

Inspiration must find answering inspiration.

Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless.

Nature is thought immersed in matter. . .

Action and blood now get the game. Disdain treads on the peaceful name.

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

Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.

There are truths that shield themselves behind veils, and are best spoken by implication. Even the sun veils himself in his own rays to blind the gaze of the too curious starer.

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements.

Sloth is the tempter that beguiles and expels from paradise.

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

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

A chaste generation would restore Paradise.

Like birds of passage, the instincts drift the soul adventurously beyond the horizon of sensible things, as if intent on convoying it to the mother country from whence it had flown.

Creeds, like other goods, pass by inheritance to descendants.

An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.

None can teach admirably if not loving his task.