Top 500 Louisa May Alcott Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “What do girls do who haven’t any mothers to help them through their troubles?”

— Louisa May Alcott

202. “I hope you will be a great deal better, dear, but you must keep watch over your ‘bosom enemy,’ as Father calls it, or it may sadden, if not spoil your life. You have had a warning; remember it, and try with heart and soul to master this quick temper, before it brings you greater sorrow and regret than you have known today.”

— Louisa May Alcott

203. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

204. “Dear me! If only men and women would trust, understand and help as my children do, what a capital place ’the world would be!”

— Louisa May Alcott

205. “So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn’t always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped.”

— Louisa May Alcott

206. “She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.”

— Louisa May Alcott

207. “The dirt is picturesque, so I don’t mind.”

— Louisa May Alcott

208. “Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.”

— Louisa May Alcott

209. “Have your fun, my dear; but if you must earn your bread, try to make it sweet with cheerfulness, not bitter with the daily regret that it isn’t cake.”

— Louisa May Alcott

210. “Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.”

— Louisa May Alcott

211. “You may try your experiment for a week and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play.”

— Louisa May Alcott

212. “Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I’ve a right to be hurt, I don’t intend to show it. They will feel that more than angry speeches or huffy actions, won’t they, Marmee?”

— Louisa May Alcott

213. “As lifted the curtain to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds, and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, ‘Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”

— Louisa May Alcott

214. “I’m tired of praise; and love is very sweet, when it is simple and sincere like this.”

— Louisa May Alcott

215. “It takes very little fire to make a great deal of smoke nowadays, and notoriety is not real glory.”

— Louisa May Alcott

216. “I did fail, say what you will, for Jo wouldn’t love me.”

— Louisa May Alcott

217. “She fell into the moody, miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable.”

— Louisa May Alcott

218. “Madam de Stael pronounced architecture to be frozen music; so is statuary crystalized spirituality.”

— Louisa May Alcott

219. “Rule yourself. Love your neighbor. Do the duty that lies nearest you.”

— Louisa May Alcott

220. “No love or pity, pardon or excuse should soften the sharp pang of reparation for the guilty man.”

— Louisa May Alcott

221. “I’m afraid I couldn’t like him without a spice of human naughtiness.”

— Louisa May Alcott

222. “Girls could do most things as well as boys, and some things better.”

— Louisa May Alcott

223. “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

224. “Many wise and true sermons are preached us everyday by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home; even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season.”

— Louisa May Alcott

225. “I’d rather give her new ones, for I think she is a little bit proud and might not like old things. If she was my sister it would do, because sisters don’t mind, but she isn’t, and that makes it bad, you see. I know how I can manage beautifully; I’ll adopt her!” and Rose looked quite radiant with.”

— Louisa May Alcott

226. “It takes three or four women to get each man into, through, and out of the world.”

— Louisa May Alcott

227. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

228. “Rivalry adds so much to the charms of one’s conquests.”

— Louisa May Alcott

229. “Si tiene edad para plantear la pregunta, tiene edad para escuchar la respuesta.”

— Louisa May Alcott

230. “He was a faithful servant, and made himself so valuable to those who employed him that they will find it hard to fill his place. He was a good husband and father, so tender, wise, and thoughtful, that Laurie and I learned much of him, and only knew how well he loved his family, when we discovered all he had done for them, unsuspected and unassisted.”

— Louisa May Alcott

231. “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.”

— Louisa May Alcott

232. “Poor Meg seldom complained, but a sense of injustice made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes, for she had not yet learned to know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy.”

— Louisa May Alcott

233. “She was standing before a fine portrait of the old gentleman when the door opened again, and, without turning, she said decidedly, ‘I’m sure now that I shouldn’t be afraid of him, for he’s got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own. He isn’t as handsome as my grandfather, but I like him.’ ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr. Laurence.”

— Louisa May Alcott

234. “Money is a needful and precious thing.”

— Louisa May Alcott

235. “Oh, Jo, can’t you?” “Teddy, dear, I wish I could!”

— Louisa May Alcott

236. “Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace. Hope and keep busy, and whatever happens, remember that you never can be fatherless.”

— Louisa May Alcott

237. “Rich people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their money accumulate for others to waste. It’s not half so sensible to leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while alive, and enjoy making one’s fellow creatures happy with it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

238. “Yours, Mother? Why, you are never angry!” And for the moment Jo forgot remorse in surprise. “I’ve been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.”

— Louisa May Alcott

239. “The sincere wish to be good is half the battle.”

— Louisa May Alcott

240. “Laurie felt just then that his heart was entirely broken and the world a howling wilderness.”

— Louisa May Alcott

241. “It’s a great comfort to have an artistic sister.”

— Louisa May Alcott

242. “It was the best thing he could have done, far more soothing than the most eloquent words, for Jo felt the unspoken sympathy, and in the silence learned the sweet solace which affection administers to sorrow.”

— Louisa May Alcott

243. “Ridicule is often harder to bear than self-denial.”

— Louisa May Alcott

244. “I hate estimable young men with brown eyes!”

— Louisa May Alcott

245. “I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal.”

— Louisa May Alcott

246. “Many argue; not many converse.”

— Louisa May Alcott

247. “Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least.”

— Louisa May Alcott

248. “Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

— Louisa May Alcott

249. “This is the first duty of parents, and no false delicacy should keep them from the watchful care, the gentle warning, which makes self-knowledge and self-control the compass and pilot of the young as they leave the safe harbour of home.”

— Louisa May Alcott

250. “The female population exceeds the male, you know, especially in New England, which accounts for the high state of culture we are in, perhaps.”

— Louisa May Alcott