Top 500 Louisa May Alcott Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Salt is like good-humor, and nearly every thing is better for a pinch of it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

52. “I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.”

— Louisa May Alcott

53. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

54. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

55. “You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off.”

— Louisa May Alcott

56. “No woman should give her happiness into the keeping of a man without fixed principles...”

— Louisa May Alcott

57. “Books are always good company if you have the right sort.”

— Louisa May Alcott

58. “En toda vida, hay dias de lluvia, dias obscuros y dias tristes y grises.”

— Louisa May Alcott

59. “Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault.”

— Louisa May Alcott

60. “I love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.”

— Louisa May Alcott

61. “The humblest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them.”

— Louisa May Alcott

62. “I shall keep my book on the table here, and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good, and help me through the day.”

— Louisa May Alcott

63. “Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort that is.”

— Louisa May Alcott

64. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

65. “November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year.”

— Louisa May Alcott

66. “Where the heart is the mind works best.”

— Louisa May Alcott

67. “Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.”

— Louisa May Alcott

68. “Into each life some rain must fall, Somedays must be dark and sad and dreary.”

— Louisa May Alcott

69. “But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested. It’s highly virtuous to say we’ll be good, but we can’t do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way.”

— Louisa May Alcott

70. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

71. “At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will. At thirty, they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact.”

— Louisa May Alcott

72. “Woman work a great many miracles.”

— Louisa May Alcott

73. “Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood.”

— Louisa May Alcott

74. “My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa would amount to something after all.”

— Louisa May Alcott

75. “There are plenty to love you so try to be satisfied with Father and Mother, Sisters and Brothers, friends and babies till the best lover of all comes to give you your reward.”

— Louisa May Alcott

76. “I want to be great, or nothing. I won’t be a commonplace dauber, so I don’t intend to try any more.”

— Louisa May Alcott

77. “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.”

— Louisa May Alcott

78. “I don’t pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you’d imagine. I’m interested in other people’s experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can’t explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.”

— Louisa May Alcott

79. “Don’t mind me. I’m as happy as a cricket here.”

— Louisa May Alcott

80. “But the spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.”

— Louisa May Alcott

81. “A happy soul in a healthy body makes the best sort of beauty for man or woman.”

— Louisa May Alcott

82. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

83. “I will make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world.”

— Louisa May Alcott

84. “It’s amazing how lovely common things become, if one only knows how to look at them.”

— Louisa May Alcott

85. “I’ve had a lot of troubles, so I write jolly tales.”

— Louisa May Alcott

86. “You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.”

— Louisa May Alcott

87. “Resolved to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.”

— Louisa May Alcott

88. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

89. “Simple, genuine goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us.”

— Louisa May Alcott

90. “Dear me! how happy and good we’d be, if we had no worries!”

— Louisa May Alcott

91. “My dear, don’t let the sun go down upon your anger – forgive each other, help each other and begin again tomorrow.”

— Louisa May Alcott

92. “It’s like the tide, Jo, when it turns it goes slowly – but it can’t be stopped.”

— Louisa May Alcott

93. “Work is always my salvation and I will celebrate it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

94. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

95. “It’s wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can’t have the one you want.”

— Louisa May Alcott

96. “Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!”

— Louisa May Alcott

97. “I ask not for any crown But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within.”

— Louisa May Alcott

98. “The duty we owe ourselves is greater than that we owe others.”

— Louisa May Alcott

99. “Energy is more attractive than beauty in a man.”

— Louisa May Alcott

100. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.”

— Louisa May Alcott