Explore Quotes by Amos Bronson Alcott

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few.

The richest minds need not large libraries.

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

Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially.

No one is promiscuous in his way of dying. A man who has decided to hang himself will never jump in front of a train.

Ignorance is innocence - stupidity comes with experience

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.

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also.

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books.

None can teach admirably if not loving his task.

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

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

The history of books shows the humblest origin of some of the most valued, wrought as these were out of obscure materials by persons whose names thereafter became illustrious. The thumbed volumes, now so precious to thousands, were compiled from personal experiences and owe their interest to touches of inspiration of which the writer was less author than amanuensis, himself the voiced word of life for all times.

Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams.

Prudence is the footprint of Wisdom.

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps.

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

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

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

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

Nature is thought immersed in matter. . .