Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

109 Sourced Quotes

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. A noble artist, he has visions of excellence and revelations of beauty, which he has neither impersonated in character, nor embodied in words. His life and teachings are but studies for yet nobler ideals.

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

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Right is the royal ruler alone; and he who rules with least restraint comes nearest to empire.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Observation more than books, experience rather than persons, are the prime educators.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Success is sweet, the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.

Amos Bronson Alcott
The mind is fast emancipating itself from the dominion of man and of matter. It has let loose fearful forces on the world.

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
The passions refuse to be organized on a basis of their own; hostile to personal freedom and one another, they rush precipitately into anarchy and mob rule.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Dignity of manner always conveys a sense of reserved force.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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?

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

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
The surest sign of age is loneliness. While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot be old, whatever his years may be.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
I press thee to my heart as Duty's faithful child.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Solitude is Wisdom's school. Attend then the lessons of your own soul; become a pupil of the wise God within you, for by his tuitions alone shall you grow into the knowledge and stature of the deities. The seraphs descend from heaven, in the solitudes of meditation, in the stillness of prayer.

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
Our dreams drench us in sense, and sense steeps us again in dreams.

Amos Bronson Alcott
My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages.

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise. As with friends, one finds new beauties at every interview, and would stay long in the presence of those choice companions. As with friends, he may dispense with a wide acquaintance. Few and choice. The richest minds need not large libraries.

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
One must espouse some pursuit, taking it kindly at heart and with enthusiasm.

Amos Bronson Alcott
A government for protecting the coarser interests of the body, business and bread only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption to decay.

Amos Bronson Alcott