Amos Bronson Alcott
(1799-1888)

American Educator, Transcendentalist

birthdate: November 29
birthplace:
Wolcott, Connecticut

QUOTES

To apprehend a miracle, a man must first have wrought it. He knows only what he has lived, and interprets all facts in the light of his experience. Miracles are spiritual experiences, not feats of legerdemain, not freaks of nature. It is the spiritual sight that discerns whatsoever is painted to sense. Flesh is faithless and blind.

Solitude is Wisdom’s school. Attend then the lessons of your own soul;

Every synthetic fact is supernatural and miraculous. Analysis by detecting its law resolves it into science, and renders it a fact of the understanding. Divinely seen, natural facts are symbols of spiritual laws. Miracles are of the heart; not of the head: indigenous to the soul; not freaks of nature, not growths of history.

Action translates death into life; fable into verity; speculation into experience; freeing man from the sorceries of tradition and the torpor of habit.

Character is the only legitimate institution; the only regal influence. Its power is infinite.

...nature is not separate from me; she is mine alike with my body; and in moments of true life, I feel my identity with her; I breathe, pulsate, feel, think, will, through her members, and know of no duality of being.

Love designs, thought sketches, action sculptures the works of spirit. Love is divine, conceiving, creating, completing, all things. Love is the Genius of Spirit.

The trump of reform is sounding throughout the world for a revolution of all human affairs.

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.

“That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.”

“The less routine the more life.”

“Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.”

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

“Many can argue; not many converse”

“Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.”

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

Our ideals are our better selves.”

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

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

 

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