Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 - March 6, 1888) was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A.M. Barnard. Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children's novel today. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. She died in Boston. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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A real gentleman is as polite to a little girl as to a woman.
A time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever.
Be worthy love, and love will come.
Conceit spoils the finest genius.
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.
Housekeeping ain't no joke.
I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
If I didn't care about doing right and didn't feel uncomfortable doing wrong, I should get on capitally.
If you dear little girls would only learn what real beauty is, and not pinch and starve and bleach yourselves out so, you'd save an immense deal of time and money and pain. A happy soul in a healthy body makes the best sort of beauty for man or woman.
It takes three or four women to get each man into, through, and out of this world.
It takes two flints to make a fire.
Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can.
Love is a great beautifier.
Men are always ready to die for us, but not to make our lives worth having. Cheap sentiment and bad logic.
Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.
Nothing provokes speculation more than the sight of a woman enjoying herself.
Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not.
Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow...
Strong convictions precede great actions.
Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so.
The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.
There is always light behind the clouds.
We don't choose our talents; but we needn't hide them in a napkin because they are not just what we want.
What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?
When I had youth I had no money; now I have the money I have no time; and when I get the time, if I ever do, I shall have no health to enjoy life.
Wild roses are fairest, and nature a better gardener than art.
Work is and always has been my salvation and I thank the Lord for it.
Young men often laugh at the sensible girls whom they secretly respect, and affect to admire the silly ones whom they secretly despise, because earnestness, intelligence, and womanly dignity are not the fashion.
Categories: Louisa May Alcott, Quotes of the day
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