Top 500 Louisa May Alcott Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “O vanity, mislead no more!”

— Louisa May Alcott

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

— Louisa May Alcott

253. “Long, quiet days she spent, not lonely of idle, for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends, and she was by nature a busy bee.”

— Louisa May Alcott

254. “It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God.”

— Louisa May Alcott

255. “Men are often bad, but babies never are.”

— Louisa May Alcott

256. “There are things that mothers can manage best when they do their duty.”

— Louisa May Alcott

257. “Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle. “Don’t, Jo. It’s so boyish!” “That’s why I do it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

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

— Louisa May Alcott

259. “You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like. That’s not my way.”

— Louisa May Alcott

260. “Sympathy is a sweet thing.”

— Louisa May Alcott

261. “Mothers can forgive anything!”

— Louisa May Alcott

262. “He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many.”

— Louisa May Alcott

263. “Poor Jo tried desperately to be good, but her bosom enemy was always ready to flame up and defeat her, and it took years of patient effort to subdue it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

264. “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

265. “Oh, Mother, help me, do help me!”

— Louisa May Alcott

266. “This is just the time, Meg, when young married people are apt to grow apart, and the very time when they ought to be most together, for the first tenderness soon wears off, unless care is taken to preserve it. And no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given to them to train.”

— Louisa May Alcott

267. “Christie loved books; and the attic next her own was full of them. To this store she found her way by a sort of instinct as sure as that which leads a fly to a honey-pot, and, finding many novels, she read her fill. This amusement lightened many heavy hours, peopled the silent house with troops of friends, and, for a time, was the joy of her life.”

— Louisa May Alcott

268. “I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods.”

— Louisa May Alcott

269. “Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for to those who have enacted them, the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone. So romancers had better let imagination paint for them that which is above all art, and leave their lovers to themselves during the happiest minutes of their lives.”

— Louisa May Alcott

270. “Because, dear, I don’t think you suited to one another. As friends you are very happy, and your frequent quarrels soon blow over, but I fear you would both rebel if you were mated for life. You are too much alike and too fond of freedom, not to mention hot tempers and strong wills, to get on happily together, in a relation which needs infinite patience and forbearance, as well as love.”

— Louisa May Alcott

271. “That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.”

— Louisa May Alcott

272. “To most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep.”

— Louisa May Alcott

273. “By gentle words and silent acts of kindness, he had won her reverence and her trust, which now had deepened into woman’s truest, purest love.”

— Louisa May Alcott

274. “The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall bookcases, the cosy chairs, the globes and, best of all, the wilderness of books, in which she could wader where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her.”

— Louisa May Alcott

275. “All the worse for the undeniable talent which hides the evil so subtly and makes the danger so delightful.”

— Louisa May Alcott

276. “I don’t want a religion that I put away with my Sunday clothes, and don’t take out till the day comes around again; I want something to see and feel and live day by day.”

— Louisa May Alcott

277. “Life is a fight, and I like a good soldier.”

— Louisa May Alcott

278. “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

279. “Love is apt to make lunatics of even men and saints.”

— Louisa May Alcott

280. “Keep bobbing, and we’ll come right by and by.”

— Louisa May Alcott

281. “If rank and money come with love and virtue, also, I should accept them gratefully, and enjoy your good fortune, but I know, by experience, how much genuine happiness can be had in a plain little house, where the daily bread is earned, and some privations give sweetness to the few pleasures.”

— Louisa May Alcott

282. “Polly shut her door hard, and felt ready to cry with vexation that her pleasure should be spoilt by such a silly idea, for, of all the silly freaks of this fast age, that of little people playing at love is about the silliest. Polly had been taught that it was a very serious and sacred thing, and, according to her notions, it was far more improper to flirt with one boy than to coast with a dozen.”

— Louisa May Alcott

283. “If every one agreed, we should never get on.”

— Louisa May Alcott

284. “What right have I to more gay gowns, when some poor babies have none; or to spend time making myself fine, while there is so much bitter want in the world?”

— Louisa May Alcott

285. “For the wise old man was universally beloved, and ministered so beautifully to his flock that many of them thanked him all their lives for the help given to both hearts and souls.”

— Louisa May Alcott

286. “The thought that, insignificant as she was, she yet might do some good, made her very careful of her acts and words, and so anxious to keep head contented and face happy, that she forgot her clothes, and made others do the same. She did not know it, but that good old fashion of simplicity made the plain gowns pretty, and the grace of unconsciousness beautified their little wearer with the charm that makes girlhood sweetest to those who truly love and reverence it.”

— Louisa May Alcott

287. “Gentlemen, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color.”

— Louisa May Alcott

288. “I’ll behave like a Turveydrop see.”

— Louisa May Alcott

289. “The right string had been touched, and even French exercises and piano practice became endurable, since accomplishments would be useful by and by; dress, manners, and habits were all interesting now, because ‘mind and body, heart and soul, must be cultivated’, and while training to become an ‘intelligent, graceful, healthy girl’, little Josie was unconsciously fitting herself to play her part well on whatever stage the great Manager might prepare for her.”

— Louisa May Alcott

290. “It isn’t fair that I should have the hardest work, and never any amusement. Men are very selfish, even the best of them.”

— Louisa May Alcott

291. “No, Mother, it is better as it is, and I’m glad Amy has learned to love him. But you are right in one thing. I am lonely, and perhaps if Teddy had tried again, I might have said ‘Yes,’ not because I love him any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away.”

— Louisa May Alcott

292. “Please could I say one word?” was the question three times repeated before a rough head boobed out from the grotto of books in which Mac usually sat. “Did anyone speak?” he asked, blinking in teh flood of sunshine that entered with Rose. “Only three times, thank you. Don’t disturb yourself, I beg; for I merely want to say a word,” answered Rose.”

— Louisa May Alcott

293. “Virtue was its own reward.”

— Louisa May Alcott

294. “I beg leave to assure my honored readers that most of the incidents are taken from real life, and that the oddest are the truest; for no person, no matter how vivid an imagination he may have, can invent anything half so droll as the freaks and fancies that originate in the lively brains of little people.”

— Louisa May Alcott

295. “We all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them.”

— Louisa May Alcott

296. “I wish we could wash from our hearts and souls The stains of the week away, And let water and air by their magic make Ourselves as pure as they. Then on the earth there would be indeed, A glorious washing day!”

— Louisa May Alcott

297. “Being a domestic man, John decidedly missed the wifely attentions he had been accustomed to receive, but as he adored his babies, he cheerfully relinquished his comfort for a time, supposing with masculine ignorance that peace would soon be restored.”

— Louisa May Alcott

298. “Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.”

— Louisa May Alcott

299. “I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved and respected; to have a happy youth; to be well and wisely married; and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send.”

— Louisa May Alcott

300. “Here’s Meg married and a mamma, Amy flourishing away at Paris, and Beth in love. I’m the only one that has sense enough to keep out of mischief.”

— Louisa May Alcott