Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I only mean to say that I have a feeling that it never was intended I should live long. I'm not like the rest of you.
She fell into the moody, miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable.
Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.
…often between ourselves and those nearest and dearest to us there exists a reserve which it is very hard to overcome.
Young people think they never can change, but they do in the most wonderful manner, and very few die of broken hearts.
Don't cry so bitterly, but remember this day, and resolve with all your soul that you will never know another like it.
Youth, health and freedom were meant to be enjoyed and I want to try every pleasure before I am too old to enjoy them.
Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort that is.
…I can't help seeing that you are very lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart.
Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her.
Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.
It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.
Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?
books have been my greatest comfort, castle-building a never-failing delight, and scribbling a very profitable amusement.
We can't any of us do all we would like, but we can do our best for every case that comes to us, and that helps amazingly.
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.
I put in my list all the busy, useful independent spinsters I know, for liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.
So she doesn't call desertion, poverty, and hard work troubles? She's a brave little girl, and I shall be proud to know her.
I was thinking what a curious thing love is; only a sentiment, and yet it has power to make fools of men and slaves of women.
To me, love isn't all. I must look up, not down, trust and honor with my whole heart, and find strenght and integrity to lean on
Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.
I want to do something splendid… Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead… I think I shall write books.
...and best of all, the wilderness of books, in which she could wander, where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her.
I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.
Girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say No when they mean Yes, and drive a man out of his wits for the fun of it.
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.
The patience and the humility of the face she loved so well was a better lesson to Jo than the wisest lecture, the sharpest reproof.
The mere possession of a gun is, in itself, an urge to kill, not only by design, but by accident, by madness, by fright, by bravado.
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.
Jo's eyes sparkled, for it's always pleasant to be believed in; and a friend's praise is always sweeter than a dozen newspaper puffs.
If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now.
The emerging woman ... will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied...strength and beauty must go together.
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.
It is never too early to try and plant [good principles] in a child, and never too late to cultivate them in the most neglected person.
Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.
... for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted.
Dear me, if men and women would only trust, understand, and help one another as my children do, what a capital place the world would be!
She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.
Go out more, keep cheerful as well as busy, for you are the sunshine-maker of the family, and if you get dismal there is no fair weather.
Prosperity suits some people, and they blossom best in a glow of sunshine; others need the shade, and are the sweeter for a touch of frost.
People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays; men have to work and women to marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world.
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.
The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.
The female population exceeds the male, you know, especially in New England, which accounts for the high state of culture we are in, perhaps.
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.
I often think flowers are the angels' alphabet whereby they write on hills and fields mysterious and beautiful lessons for us to feel and learn.
I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.
...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.
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
I'll try and be what he loves to call me, 'a little woman,' and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here instead of wanting to be somewhere else.