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.
- Journals, Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1938, Volume 1, p. 115.

I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from this 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, quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication. also in Patri, Umesh Hindu scriptures and American transcendentalists.

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. ’T is 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
- From 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

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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