Top 500 Louisa May Alcott Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “But a bird sang blithely on a budding bough, close by, the snowdrops blossomed freshly at the window, and the spring sunshine streamed in like a benediction over the placid face upon the pillow, a face so full of painless peace that those who loved it best smiled through their tears, and thanked God that Beth was well at last.”

— Louisa May Alcott

452. “Talent isn’t genius.”

— Louisa May Alcott

453. “Lounging and larking doesn’t pay,” observed Jo, shaking her head. “I’m tired of it and mean to go to work at something right off.”

— Louisa May Alcott

454. “Mrs. March knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and when it was possible she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice as much as they did salts and senna. “Very well, Amy, if your heart is set upon it, and you see your way through without too great an outlay of money, time, and temper, I’ll say no more. Talk it over with the girls, and whichever way you decide, I’ll do my best to help you.”

— Louisa May Alcott

455. “If you loved me, Jo, I should be a perfect saint, for you could make me anything you like.”

— Louisa May Alcott

456. “I’d rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.”

— Louisa May Alcott

457. “Well, the winter’s gone, and I’ve written no books, earned no fortune, but i’ve made a friend worth baving and I’ll try to keep him all my life.”

— Louisa May Alcott

458. “Amy’s lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it till long afterward. Men seldom do, for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don’t take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.”

— Louisa May Alcott

459. “Genius. Don’t you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?” And she slyly smiled in his disappointed face.”

— Louisa May Alcott

460. “To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman.”

— Louisa May Alcott

461. “Why in the world should you spend your money, worry your family, and turn the house upside down for a parcel of girls who don’t care a sixpence for you? I.”

— Louisa May Alcott

462. “If he had any sorrow, “it sat with its head under its wing,” and he turned only his sunny side to the world.”

— Louisa May Alcott

463. “Las personas buenas y muy queridas son las que mueren siempre.”

— Louisa May Alcott

464. “What a pleasant life she might have, if she only chose. I don’t envy her much, in spite of her money, for after all rich people have about as many worries as poor ones, I think,” added Jo.”

— Louisa May Alcott

465. “If life is often as hard as this, I don’t see how we ever shall get through it,” added her sister despondently.”

— Louisa May Alcott

466. “Give them all mu dear love and a kiss. tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their affection at all times.”

— Louisa May Alcott

467. “There’s one sort of poverty that I particularly like to help. Out-and-out beggars get taken care of, but poor gentle folks fare badly, because they won’t ask, and people don’t dare to offer charity. Yet there are a thousand ways of helping them, if one only knows how to do it so delicately that it does not offend. I must say, I like to serve a decayed gentleman better than a blarnerying beggar.”

— Louisa May Alcott

468. “How well we pull together, don’t we?” said Amy, who objected to silence just then. “So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you, Amy?” very tenderly. “Yes, Laurie,” very low. Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected in the lake.”

— Louisa May Alcott

469. “I planned to spend mine in new music,” said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle-holder.”

— Louisa May Alcott

470. “If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what.”

— Louisa May Alcott

471. “Are you going to deliver lectures all the way home?” he asked presently. “Of course not. Why?” “Because if you are, I’ll take a bus. If you’re not, I’d like to walk.”

— Louisa May Alcott

472. “I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world.”

— Louisa May Alcott

473. “He helped and comforted me, and showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. It was easier to try for your sakes than for my own. A startled or surprised look from one of you when I spoke sharply rebuked me more than any words could have done, and 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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

474. “Her arms instinctively tightened their hold upon the dearest treasure she possessed.”

— Louisa May Alcott

475. “The sun was low, and the heavens glowed with the splendor of an autumn sunset. Gold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City.”

— Louisa May Alcott

476. “Providence trains us by disappointment, surprises us with unexpected success, and turns our seeming trials into blessings.”

— Louisa May Alcott

477. “There are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help n the right way.”

— Louisa May Alcott

478. “But I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good. We’ve each got a dollar, and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintram for myself. I’ve wanted it so long,” said Jo, who was a bookworm.”

— Louisa May Alcott

479. “She knew she looked well, she loved to dance, she felt that her foot was on the native heath in a ball-room, and enjoyed the delightful sense of power which comes when young girls first discover the new and lovely kingdom they are born to rule by virtue of beauty, youth, and womanhood.”

— Louisa May Alcott

480. “We’ll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you’d come over and see us.”

— Louisa May Alcott

481. “But, Sir, I thought every story should have some sort of a moral, so I took care to have a few of my sinners repent.”

— Louisa May Alcott

482. “My little girl, I would face a dozen storms far worse than this to keep your soul as stainless as snow; for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity, unless we watch and pray, and never think them too trivial to be resisted.”

— Louisa May Alcott

483. “It’s a great mistake for young girls like Meg to leave themselves nothing to do but dress, give orders, and gossip. When I was first married, I used to long for my new clothes to wear out or get torn, so that I might have the pleasure of mending them, for I got heartily sick of doing fancywork and tending my pocket handkerchief.”

— Louisa May Alcott

484. “They haf no right to put poison in the sugarplum, and let the small ones eat it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

485. “Queens of society can’t get on without money, so you mean to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother’s girls.”

— Louisa May Alcott

486. “If I was a boy, we’d run away together, and have a capital time; but as I’m a miserable girl, I must be proper, and stop at home. Don’t tempt me, Teddy, it’s a crazy plan.”

— Louisa May Alcott

487. “Up in the garret, where Jo’s unquiet wanderings ended, stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owner’s name, and each filled with relics of childhood and girlhood ended now for all.”

— Louisa May Alcott

488. “When the first bitterness was over, the family accepted the inevitable, and tried to bear it cheerfully, helping one another by the increased affection which comes to bind households tenderly together in times of trouble. They put away their grief, and each did his or her part toward making that last year a happy one.”

— Louisa May Alcott

489. “Then let me advise you to take up your little burdens again, for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them.”

— Louisa May Alcott

490. “I’m not a show, Aunty, and no one is coming to stare at me, to criticize my dress, or count the cost of my luncheon. I’m too happy to care what anyone says or thinks, and I’m going to have my little wedding just as I like it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

491. “It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women. Amy was learning this distinction through much tribulation, for mistaking enthusiasm for inspiration, she attempted every branch of art with.”

— Louisa May Alcott

492. “That’s loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it,” said Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs collecting clothes for the poor Hummels.”

— Louisa May Alcott

493. “But it is nice to be praised and admired, and I can’t help saying I like it,” said Meg, looking half ashamed of the confession. “That is perfectly natural, and quite harmless, if the liking does not become a passion, and lead one to do foolish or unmaidenly things. Learn to know and value the praise which is worth having, and to excite the admiration of excellent people by being modest as well as pretty, Meg.”

— Louisa May Alcott

494. “Aprende a conocer y a distinguir los elogios que enaltecen de los que denigran.”

— Louisa May Alcott

495. “If Marmee shook her fist instead of kissing her hand to us, it would serve us right, for more ungrateful wretches than we are were never seen,” cried Jo, taking a remorseful satisfaction in the snowy walk and bitter wind.”

— Louisa May Alcott

496. “I haven’t got any mother, you know.”

— Louisa May Alcott

497. “This suited the young lady better than twilight confidences, tender pressures of the hand, and eloquent glances of the eye, for with Jo, brain developed earlier than heart, and she preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.”

— Louisa May Alcott

498. “And Jo felt as if during that fortnight her sister had grown up amazingly, and was drifting away from her into a world where she could not follow.”

— Louisa May Alcott

499. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!”

— Louisa May Alcott

500. “She had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard; and now she had her wish, – for what could be more beautiful than to devote her life to father and mother, trying to make home as happy to them as they had to her?”

— Louisa May Alcott