American writer & Philosopher (1799-1888)
A check on itself, evil subserves the economies of good, as it were a condiment to give relish to good.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Cities with all their advantages have something hostile to liberal learning, the seductions are so subtle and accost the senses so openly on all sides.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
A chaste generation would restore Paradise.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
In the ardor of his enthusiasm, a youth set forth in quest of a man of whom he might take counsel as to his future, but after long search and many disappointments, he came near relinquishing the pursuit as hopeless, when suddenly it occurred to him that one must first be a man to find a man, and profiting by this suggestion, he set himself to the work of becoming himself the man he had been seeking so long and fruitlessly.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
If the ancients left us ideas, to our credit be it spoken that we moderns are building houses for them -- structures which neither Plato nor Archimedes had dreamed possible.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Whatsoever stirs the stagnant currents, setting these flowing in wholesome directions, promotes brisk spirits and productive thinking. The less of routine, the more of life.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Sloth is the tempter that beguiles and expels from paradise.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
The traveled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
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.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Every dogma embodies some shade of truth to give it seeming currency.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Truth is inclusive of all the virtues, is older than sects and schools, and, like charity, more ancient than mankind.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
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.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
The history of religions, of which Christianity is a transcendent element, awaits the deepest study. It requires Bibles to free from Bibles. Comparative theology is the best of studies for liberating one's mind from geographical and traditional limitations. Like travelling, it shows the globe in its varying climates and zones, its latitude and longitude of intelligence. When the races shall have learned each other's language, the significance of things to thoughts, one faith becomes universal, one brotherhood.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Pleasure, that immortal essence, the beauteous bead sparkling in the cup, effervesces soon and subsides.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk