Best 137 quotes of Amos Bronson Alcott on MyQuotes

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.

A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism.

A check on itself, evil subserves the economies of good, as it were a condiment to give relish to good.

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

A friendship formed in childhood, in youth,--by happy accident at any stage of rising manhood,--becomes the genius that rules the rest of life.

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.

A good style fits like a good costume.

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

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

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

An age deficient in idealism has ever been one of immorality and superficial attainment, since without the sense of ideas, nobility of character becomes of rare attainment, if possible.

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

As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind.

A state, a community, caring first for all its children, providing amply for their spiritual as for their temporal well-being, has organized the primitive Eden.

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

A work of real merit finds favor at last.

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

Children are illuminated text-books, breviaries of doctrine, living bodies of divinity, open always and inviting their elders to peruse the characters inscribed on the lovely leaves.

Cities with all their advantages have something hostile to liberal learning, the seductions are so subtle and accost the senses so openly on all sides.

Civilization degrades many in order to exalt the few.

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.

Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams.

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

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

Despair snuffs the sun from the firmament.

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

Dignity of manner always conveys a sense of reserved force.

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

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

Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.

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

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

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

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

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

Every sin provokes its punishment.

Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty.

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us.

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

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

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

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

Genius has oftenest been the pariah of his time, the unhoused god whom none cared for, unnamed till they whom he first promoted, enriched and honored, found it honorable to own their benefactor.

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

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements.

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.

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.

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

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

Ideas first and last: yet it is not till these are formulated and utilized that the devotees of the common sense discern their value and advantages. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained life long. Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks, thus carrying forward all human endeavors to their issues.