Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcottwas 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth29 November 1799
CountryUnited States of America
Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.
The fable runs that the gods mix our pains and pleasure in one cup, and thus mingle for us the adulterate immortality which we alone are permitted here to enjoy. Voluptuous raptures, could we prolong these at pleasure, would dissipate and dissolve us. A sip is the most that mortals are permitted from any goblet of delight.
Truth is inclusive of all the virtues, is older than sects and schools, and, like charity, more ancient than mankind.
A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism.
A happy childhood is the pledge of a ripe manhood.
Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.
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.
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.
The books that charmed us in youth recall the delight ever afterwards; we are hardly persuaded there are any like them, any deserving our equal affections.
Memory marks the horizon of our consciousness, imagination its zenith.
A check on itself, evil subserves the economies of good, as it were a condiment to give relish to good.
Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity.
Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons.
A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women.