Amos Bronson Alcott

“Choice, not chance, determines destiny.”

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

“The less of routine, the more of life.”

“Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.”

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

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

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

“To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

“We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.”

“Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure.”

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