Amos Alcott Quotes & Sayings

Whatsoever stirs the stagnant currents, setting these flowing in wholesome directions, promotes brisk spirits and productive thinking. The less of routine, the more of life. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Science has grown frightfully audacious in these days
swift-footed, ponderous, careering over her iron ways with unslacking pace. This rampant dragon, on which I am mounted, see how he bends his once stiff neck to his rider, champing his checked bit and pawing the dust, impatient to leap around the globe. Genius is prescient, foresees its own might. Man is striving through these iron-ribbed, steam-sped hippogriffs, to recover his lost ubiquity and omnipotence, and threatens soon to grasp in his ample palm, and fix with flaming eye-ball, the elemental forces! — Amos Bronson Alcott

There are truths that shield themselves behind veils, and are best spoken by implication. Even the sun veils himself in his own rays to blind the gaze of the too curious starer. — Amos Bronson Alcott

All unrest is but the struggle of the soul to reassure herself of her inborn immortality. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Good-humor, gay spirits, are the liberators, the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchemy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Travel makes all men countrymen, makes people noblemen and kings, every man tasting of liberty and dominion. — 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

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power. — Amos Bronson Alcott

One's outlook is a part of his virtue. — Amos Bronson Alcott

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Sloth is the tempter that beguiles and expels from paradise. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Hold fast, therefore, O circular philosopher, to thy centre, and drive the globe along its orbit by the momentum of thy thought. — 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

Despair snuffs the sun from the firmament. — Amos Bronson Alcott

First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others. — Amos Bronson Alcott

If the ancients left us ideas, to our credit be it spoken that we moderns are building houses for them
structures which neither Plato nor Archimedes had dreamed possible. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

The finer literature, indeed, is characterized by a certain suffusion of the feminine flavor, the finer, the more ideal, thought plumed with sentiment; even science loves to spring from its feet, philosophy affect the clouds to inspire and edify. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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? — Amos Bronson Alcott

One's life should be sufficiently interesting to furnish entertainment in the record. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Life is one, religion one, creeds are many and diverse. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

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

Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure.. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Your real influence is measured by your treatment of yourself. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

Memory marks the horizon of our consciousness, imagination its zenith. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A state, a community, caring first for all its children, providing amply for their spiritual as for their temporal well-being, has organized the primitive Eden. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Our dreams drench us in sense, and sense steeps us again in dreams. — 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

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

Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons. — 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

Pity the mother who assumes the name without being all this implies! — Amos Bronson Alcott

Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Action and blood now get the game. Disdain treads on the peaceful name. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Where there is a mother in the home, matters go well. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

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

A good style fits like a good costume. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A chaste generation would restore Paradise. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A happy childhood is the pledge of a ripe manhood. — 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

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

A true teacher defends his students against his own personal influences. — 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

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Creeds, like other goods, pass by inheritance to descendants. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements. — Amos Bronson Alcott

The history of religions, of which Christianity is a transcendent element, awaits the deepest study. It requires Bibles to free from Bibles. Comparative theology is the best of studies for liberating one's mind from geographical and traditional limitations. Like travelling, it shows the globe in its varying climates and zones, its latitude and longitude of intelligence. When the races shall have learned each other's language, the significance of things to thoughts, one faith becomes universal, one brotherhood. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Friends are the leaders of the bosom, being more ourselves than we are, and we complement our affections in theirs. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

Love is the key to felicity, nor is there a heaven to any who love not. We enter Paradise through its gates only. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Ideas first and last: yet it is not till these are formulated and utilized that the devotees of the common sense discern their value and advantages. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained life long. Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks, thus carrying forward all human endeavors to their issues. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Who knows the mind has the key to all things else. — Amos Bronson Alcott

As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

The more one endeavors to sound the depths of his ignorance the deeper the chasm appears. — Amos Bronson Alcott

We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Time is one's best friend, teaching best of all the wisdom of silence. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Man is a living lie
a bitter jest Upon himself
a conscious grain of sand Lost in a desert of unconsciousness. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Many are those who can argue; few are those who can converse — Amos Bronson Alcott

While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be. — 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

The less of routine, the more of life. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

The head best leaves to the heart what the heart alone divines. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Ourselves are cosmic and capacious beyond conjecture, and to experience some notion of the planetary perspective is the richest income from travelling. It takes all to inform and educate all. Sallies forth from our cramped firesides into other homes, other hearts, are wonderfully wholesome and enlarging. Travel opens prospects on all sides, widens our horizon, liberates the mind from geographical and conventional limitations, from local prejudices and national, showing the globe in its differing climates, zones, and latitudes of intelligence. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A friendship formed in childhood, in youth,
by happy accident at any stage of rising manhood,
becomes the genius that rules the rest of life. — Amos Bronson Alcott

In the ardor of his enthusiasm, a youth set forth in quest of a man of whom he might take counsel as to his future, but after long search and many disappointments, he came near relinquishing the pursuit as hopeless, when suddenly it occurred to him that one must first be a man to find a man, and profiting by this suggestion, he set himself to the work of becoming himself the man he had been seeking so long and fruitlessly. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Traveling is no fool's errand to him who carries his eyes and itinerary along with him. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Books are the most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, frankly declaring the author's mind, without offense. — Amos Bronson Alcott

None can teach admirably if not loving his task. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A birthday is a good time to begin a new; throwing away the old habits, as you would old clothes, and never putting them again. — Amos Bronson Alcott

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Concord is a classic land. The names of Emerson and Thoreau and Channing and Hawthorne are associated with the fields and forests and lakes and rivers of this township. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps. — Amos Bronson Alcott

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

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. — Amos Bronson Alcott

A work of real merit finds favor at last. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Enthusiasm is essential to the successful attainment of any high endeavor. — Amos Bronson Alcott