Amos Bronson Alcott
All unrest is but the struggle of the soul to reassure herself of her inborn immortality.Collection: Struggle
Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps.Collection: Garden
Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams.Collection: Fountain
Civilization degrades many in order to exalt the few.Collection: Order
One does not see his thought distinctly till it is reflected in the image of another's.Collection: Doe
Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also.Collection: Men
Many can argue - not many converse.Collection: Inspirational
Fullness is always quiet; agitation will answer for empty vessels only.Collection: Empty Vessels
Man is a living lie--a bitter jest Upon himself--a conscious grain of sand Lost in a desert of unconsciousness.Collection: Lying
Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity.Collection: Unity
As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind.Collection: Education
Where women are, the better things are implied if not spoken.Collection: Women
Dignity of manner always conveys a sense of reserved force.Collection: Dignity
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.Collection: Suicide
Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Truth
Sloth is the tempter that beguiles and expels from paradise.Collection: Sloth
Life is one, religion one, creeds are many and diverse.Collection: Life Is
Despair snuffs the sun from the firmament.Collection: Despair
Anger is the resentment of the animal, and gentle blood alone makes the gentleman.Collection: Anger
A chaste generation would restore Paradise.Collection: Generations
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.Collection: Country
Love is the key to felicity, nor is there a heaven to any who love not. We enter Paradise through its gates only.Collection: Love
Inspiration must find answering inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
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.Collection: Book
Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams.Collection: Dream
A work of real merit finds favor at last.Collection: Appreciation
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.Collection: Plato
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?Collection: Heaven
Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds.Collection: Self
One must espouse some pursuit, taking it kindly at heart and with enthusiasm.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Heart
Creeds, like other goods, pass by inheritance to descendants.Collection: Inheritance
An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.Collection: Depth
None can teach admirably if not loving his task.Collection: Teaching
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.Collection: Book
Education may work wonders as well in warping the genius of individuals as in seconding it.Collection: Education
Nature is thought immersed in matter. . .Collection: Nature
Who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.Collection: Love
A happy childhood is the pledge of a ripe manhood.Collection: Childhood
Labor humanizes, exalts.Collection: Labor
Of gifts, there seems none more becoming to offer a friend than a beautiful book.Collection: Beautiful
Opposition strengthens the manly will.Collection: Opposition
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.Collection: Wise
I consider it the best part of an education to have been born and brought up in the country.Collection: Country
Truth is sensitive and jealous of the least encroachment upon its sacredness.Collection: Truth
Modesty, that perennial flower planted instinctively in the human breast, blooms therein only as continence guards and virtue keeps.Collection: Flower
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.Collection: Passion
The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title-deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions.Collection: Eye