Amos Bronson Alcott
» Age and Aging » “The surest sign of age is loneliness.”
» Age and Aging » “While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.”
» Analysis » “Observation more than books and experience more than persons, are the prime educators.”
» Books and Reading » “That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.”
» Conversation » “Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.”
» Dreams » “Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams.”
» Family » “Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.”
» Friends and Friendship » “Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly.”
» Government » “A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.”
» Ideals and Idealism » “Our ideals are our better selves.”
» Ignorance » “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”
» Learning » “A true teacher defends his students against his own personal influences.”
» Life and Living » “The less routine the more life.”
» Mothers » “Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well.”
» Persuasion » “Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.”
» Psychology » “Who knows, the mind has the key to all things besides.”
» Quotations » “One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.”
» Success » “Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.”
» Success » “We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.”
» Sympathy » “Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.”
» Teachers and Teaching » “The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.”
» Thoughts and Thinking » “Thought means life, since those who do not think so do not live in any high or real sense. Thinking makes the man.”
