Amos Bronson Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a vegan diet before the term was coined. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights.

Quotes

Cruelty stares at me from the butcher's face. I tread amidst carcasses. I am in the presence of the slain. The death-set eyes of beasts peer at me and accuse me of belonging to the race of murderers. Quartered, disembowelled creatures on suspended hooks plead with me. I feel myself dispossessed of the divinity.
- Journal entry (February 5, 1839) in Odell Shepard (ed.) The Journals of Bronson Alcott, vol. 1 (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1938) p. 115

I read more of the Bhagvat Geeta and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from the book, should be included in a Bible for Mankind. I think them superior to any of the other Oriental scriptures, the best of all reading for wise men.
Best of books — containing wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom.
- Journal entry (May 10, 1846) in Odell Shepard (ed.) The Journals of Bronson Alcott, vol. 1 (1938) p. 180

The Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture (1836)

The Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1836)

The preference of Jesus for Conversation, as the fittest organ of utterance, is a striking proof of his comprehensive Idea of Education.
- p. 10

Genius is but the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being.
- p. 13

Faith is the soul of all improvement. It is the Will of an Idea.
- p. 17

Orphic Sayings (1840–1841)

Believe, youth, despite all temptations, the oracle of deity in your own bosom. ’Tis the breath of God’s revelations,—the respiration of the Holy Ghost in your breast. Be faithful, not infidel, to its intuitions,—quench never its spirit,—dwell ever in its omniscience. So shall your soul be filled with light, and God be an indwelling fact,—a presence in the depths of your being.
- I. Spirit, 6. Oracle

Solitude is Wisdom’s school. Attend then the lessons of your own soul; become a pupil of the wise God within you, for by his tuitions alone shall you grow into the knowledge and stature of the deities. The seraphs descend from heaven, in the solitudes of meditation, in the stillness of prayer.
- I. Spirit, 10. Solitude

As the man, so his God.
- III. Hope

Ever present, potent, vigilant, in the breast of man, there is that which never became a party in his guilt, never consented to a wrong deed, nor performed one, but holds itself above all sin, impeccable, immaculate, immutable, the deity of the heart, the conscience of the soul, the oracle and interpreter, the judge and executor of the divine law.
- XVI. Conscience

In the theocracy of the soul majorities do not rule. God and the saints; against them the rabble of sinners, with clamorous voices and uplifted hand, striving to silence the oracle of the private heart. Beelzebub marshals majorities. Prophets and reformers are always special enemies of his and his minions. Multitudes ever lie. Every age is a Judas, and betrays its Messiahs into the hands of the multitude. The voice of the private, not popular heart, is alone authentic.
- XVII. Theocracy

There is a magic in free speaking, especially on sacred themes, most potent and resistless. It is refreshing, amidst the inane common-places bandied in pulpits and parlors, to hear a hopeful word from an earnest, upright soul. Men rally around it as to the lattice in summer heats, to inhale the breeze that flows cool and refreshing from the mountains, and invigorates their languid frames. Once heard, they feel a buoyant sense of health and hopefulness, and wonder that they should have lain sick, supine so long, when a word has power to raise them from their couch, and restore them to soundness. And once spoken, it shall never be forgotten; it charms, exalts; it visits them in dreams, and haunts them during all their wakeful hours. Great, indeed, is the delight of speech; sweet the sound of one’s bosom thought, as it returns laden with the fragrance of a brother’s approval.
- XVIII. Speech

Prudence is the footprint of Wisdom.
- XXVIII. Prudence

Enduring fame is ever posthumous. The orbs of virtue and genius seldom culminate during their terrestrial periods. Slow is the growth of great names, slow the procession of excellence into arts, institutions, life. Ages alone reflect their fulness of lustre. The great not only unseal, but create the organs by which they are to be seen. Neither Socrates nor Jesus is yet visible to the world.
- LX. Fame

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples. A noble artist, he has visions of excellence and revelations of beauty, which he has neither impersonated in character, nor embodied in words. His life and teachings are but studies for yet nobler ideals.
- LXXX. Teacher

Conceive of slaughter and flesh-eating in Eden.
- LXXXVI. Carnage

Tablets (1868)

Tablets (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1868)

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps;
Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.
- Bk I: Practical, i: The Garden, 1: Antiquity, p. 10

There is virtue in country houses, in gardens and orchards, fields, streams and groves, in rustic recreations and plain manners, that neither cities nor universities enjoy.
- Bk I: Practical, i: The Garden, 9: Rural Culture, p. 48

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 these rise and fall.
- Bk I: Practical, v: Culture, 4: Mother Tongue, p. 123

Concord Days (1872)

Concord Days (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1872)

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements.
- Conversation, p. 74

Many can argue, not many converse.
- Conversation, p. 75

Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written.
- Goethe, p. 157

Divination seems heightened and raised to its highest power in woman.
- Woman, p. 253

Table-Talk (1877)

Table-Talk (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877)

An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.
- Bk I: Practical, i: Learning, § Books, p. 7

One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.
- Bk I: Practical, i: Learning, § Quotation, p. 8

Without a mythology faith is impersonal and heartless.
- Bk I: Practical, iv: Nurture, § Faith, p. 62

The less of routine, the more of life.
- Bk I: Practical, v: Habits, § Exercise, p. 70

Our ideals are our better selves.
- Bk I: Practical, v: Habits, § Friendship, p. 77

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
- Bk I: Practical, vi: Discourse, § Conversation", p. 83

Truth is sensitive and jealous of the least encroachment upon its sacredness.
- Bk I: Practical, vi: Discourse, § Implication, pp. 88–89

Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few.
- BK II: Speculative, i: Method, § Index, p. 127

Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty.
- Bk II: Speculative, iv: The Lapse, § Durance, p. 166

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.
- Bk II: Speculative, iv: The Lapse, § Sympathy, p. 169

Memory marks the horizon of our consciousness, imagination its zenith.
- Bk II: Speculative, v: Immortality, § Sleep, p. 177

Attributed

Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Quotes reported in C. N. Douglas, Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical (1917)

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.

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.

A good style fits like a good costume.

A government for protecting the coarser interests of the body, business and bread only, is but a carcass, and soon falls, by its own corruption, to decay.

“Agriculture, for an honorable and high-minded man,” says Xenophon, “is the best of all occupations and arts by which men procure the means of living.”

A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women.

A sip is the most that mortals are permitted from any goblet of delight.

Cleanse the fountain if you would purify the streams.

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

Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity.

Debate is masculine; conversation is feminine.

Dignity of manner always conveys a sense of reserved force.

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

Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.

Enthusiasm imparts itself magnetically and fuses all into one happy and harmonious unity of feeling and sentiment.

Equanimity is the gem in virtue’s chaplet, and St. Sweetness the loveliest in her calendar.

Every sin provokes its punishment.

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us.

Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds.

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

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

Friendship is a plant that loves the sun, thrives ill under clouds.

Fullness is always quiet; agitation will answer for empty vessels only.

Genius—the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being.

Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements.

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.

Health, longevity, beauty, are other names for personal purity; and temperance is the regimen for all.

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.

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

Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks.

If the ancients left us ideas, to our credit be it spoken that we moderns are building houses for them.

Inspiration must find answering inspiration.

Labor humanizes, exalts.

Life is one, religion one, creeds are many and diverse.

Madame de Staël pronounced architecture to be frozen music; so is statuary crystallized spirituality.

Manners carry the world for the moment, character for all time.

Many can argue, not many converse.

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

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.

None can teach admirably if not loving his task.

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.

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?

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

One does not see his thought distinctly till it is reflected in the image of another’s.

One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.

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.

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

Opposition strengthens the manly will.

Our bravest lessons are not learned through success, but misadventure.

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

Our favorites are few: since only what rises from the heart reaches it, being caught and carried on the tongues of men wheresoever love and letters journey.

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

Our ideals are our better selves.

Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament. Nor is there a paradise planted until the children appear in the foreground, to animate and complete the picture.

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

Stay is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.

Sympathy wanting, all is wanting; its personal magnetism is the conductor of the sacred spark that lights our atoms, puts us in human communion, and gives us to company, conversation, and ourselves.

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

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

The head best leaves to the heart what the heart alone divines.

The more one endeavors to sound the depths of his ignorance the deeper the chasm appears.

The richest minds need not large libraries.

The surest sign of age is loneliness. While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot be old, whatever his years may be.

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.

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.

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.

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

To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

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

Truth is inclusive of all the virtues, is older than sects and schools, and, like charity, more ancient than mankind.

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

We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.

What higher praise can we bestow on any one than to say of him that he harbors another’s prejudices with a hospitality so cordial as to give him, for the time, the sympathy next best to, if indeed it be not edification in, charity itself. For what disturbs more and distracts mankind than the uncivil manners that cleave man from man?

When one becomes indifferent to women, to children, and young people, he may know that he is superannuated, and has withdrawn from whatsoever is sweetest and purest in human existence.

Where there is a mother in the house, matters speed well.

Where women are, the better things are implied if not spoken.

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?

Quotes about Alcott

Alcott’s response to the theory of natural selection was to reject its materialism out of hand. At the same time, he borrowed its outlines so as to imagine a world filled with creatures that had descended from original perfection. In essence he applied Platonic ideals to evolutionary theory. Even Agassiz, the most idealistic scientist in America, understood that this approach was nonsense.
- Randall Fuller, The Book That Changed America (2017), ISBN 978-0-525-42833-6, p. 152

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