Amos Bronson Alcott - Books Quotes

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

Amos Bronson Alcott
The books that charmed us in youth recall the delight ever afterwards; we are hardly persuaded there are any like them, any deserving our equal affections.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon; of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.

Amos Bronson Alcott
One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though perception is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more; — book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

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

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
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
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
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Of books in our time the variety is so voluminous, and they follow so fast from the press, that one must be a swift reader to acquaint himself even with their titles, and wise to discern what are worth reading.

Amos Bronson Alcott
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.

Amos Bronson Alcott