Top 359 Quotes & Sayings by Louisa May Alcott - Page 3

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.

People cannot be molded like clay.

You may try your experiment for a week and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play

Young people think they never can change, but they do in the most wonderful manner, and very few die of broken hearts.

Many wise and true sermons are preached us everyday by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home; even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season.

Let us be elegant or die! --Amy

...the love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts to be the woman I would have them copy.

…to the inspiration of necessity, we owe half the wise, beautiful, and useful blessings of the world.

...and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself.

books have been my greatest comfort, castle-building a never-failing delight, and scribbling a very profitable amusement.

The young people were playing that still more absorbing game in which hearts are always trumps.

Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.

Be worthy love, and love will come.

When Jo's conservative sister Meg says she must turn up her hair now that she is a "young lady," Jo shouts, "I'm not! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty.... I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman.

…misfortune was much more interesting to her than good luck.

it was easier to do a friendly thing than it was to stay and be thanked for it.

I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.

Woman work a great many miracles.

Girls could do most things as well as boys, and some things better.

I may be strong-minded, but no one can say I'm out of my sphere now, for woman's special mission is supposed to be drying tears and bearing burdens

...a capital patient, as she never died and never got well.

Sympathy is a sweet thing.

I went [to war] because I couldn't help it. I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not. Remember that, my dear, and think twice before you do anything.

Love and Loyalty If ever men and women are their simplest, sincerest selves, it is when suffering softens the one, and sympathy strengthens the other.

Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.

But please hug and kiss me, everyone, and don't mind my dress, I want a great many crumples of this sort put into it today.

Mothers can forgive anything!

…proved that woman isn't a half but a whole human being, and can stand alone.

Life is like college; may I graduate and earn some honors.

I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queen's on thrones, without self-respect and peace.

Work is always my salvation and I will celebrate it.

You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.

My only answer is, if my grave stood open on one side and you upon the other I'd go into my grave before I would take one step to meet you.

Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason.

Life is my university, and I hope to graduate from it with some distinction.

I think immortality is the passing of a soul through many lives or experiences, and such as are truly lived, used and learned, help on to the next, each growing richer, happier and higher, carrying with it only the real memories of what has gone before.

Energy is more attractive than beauty in a man.

I hate ordinary people!

To be strong, and beautiful, and go round making music all the time. Yes, she could do that, and with a very earnest prayer Polly asked for the strength of an upright soul, the beauty of a tender heart, the power to make her life a sweet and stirring song, helpful while it lasted, remembered when it died.

Such hours are beautiful to live, but very hard to describe.

Rule yourself. Love your neighbor. Do the duty that lies nearest you.

Don't cry so bitterly, but remember this day, and resolve with all your soul that you will never know another like it.

I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it.

Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?

Money is a needful and precious thing

The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.

Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants.

Dear me! how happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries!

Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace.

And the good fairy said, I won't leave you money or pretty dresses but I will leave you the spirit to seek your fortune from your own efforts.

All is fish that comes to the literary net. Goethe puts his joys and sorrows into poems, I turn my adventures into bread and butter.

Have your fun, my dear; but if you must earn your bread, try to make it sweet with cheerfulness, not bitter with the daily regret that it isn't cake.

Liberty must not be abused.

All the worse for the undeniable talent which hides the evil so subtly and makes the danger so delightful.

Ridicule is often harder to bear than self-denial.

The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter.

Liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.

...freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul.

Nothing seemed impossible in the beginning.