Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes - Page 4

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

Would Shakespeare and Raleigh have done their best, would that galaxy have shone so bright in the heavens had there been no Elizabeth on the throne?

Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds.

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

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.

An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.

None can teach admirably if not loving his task.

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.

Education may work wonders as well in warping the genius of individuals as in seconding it.

Nature is thought immersed in matter. . .

Who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.

A good style fits like a good costume.

A happy childhood is the pledge of a ripe manhood.

Labor humanizes, exalts.

Of gifts, there seems none more becoming to offer a friend than a beautiful book.

Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.

Truth is sensitive and jealous of the least encroachment upon its sacredness.

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

Opposition strengthens the manly will.

The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title-deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions.

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

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.

One's life should be sufficiently interesting to furnish entertainment in the record.

Modesty, that perennial flower planted instinctively in the human breast, blooms therein only as continence guards and virtue keeps.

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.