Amos Bronson Alcott
What higher praise can we bestow on any one than to say of him that he harbors another's prejudices with a hospitality so cordial as to give him, for the time, the sympathy next best to, if indeed it be not edification in, charity itself. For what disturbs more and distracts mankind than the uncivil manners that cleave man from man?Collection: Men
The history of religions, of which Christianity is a transcendent element, awaits the deepest study. It requires Bibles to free from Bibles. Comparative theology is the best of studies for liberating one's mind from geographical and traditional limitations. Like travelling, it shows the globe in its varying climates and zones, its latitude and longitude of intelligence. When the races shall have learned each other's language, the significance of things to thoughts, one faith becomes universal, one brotherhood.Collection: Race
Ourselves are cosmic and capacious beyond conjecture, and to experience some notion of the planetary perspective is the richest income from travelling. It takes all to inform and educate all. Sallies forth from our cramped firesides into other homes, other hearts, are wonderfully wholesome and enlarging. Travel opens prospects on all sides, widens our horizon, liberates the mind from geographical and conventional limitations, from local prejudices and national, showing the globe in its differing climates, zones, and latitudes of intelligence.Collection: Home
Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expressionCollection: Expression
Equanimity is the gem in virtue's chaplet, and St. Sweetness the loveliest in her calendar.Collection: Calendars
Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly, nor need we but love them devotedly to become members of an immortal fraternity, superior to accident or change.Collection: Real
Ideas first and last: yet it is not till these are formulated and utilized that the devotees of the common sense discern their value and advantages. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained life long. Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks, thus carrying forward all human endeavors to their issues.Collection: Hands
Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.Collection: Friendship
Books are the most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, frankly declaring the author’s mind, without offense.Collection: Reading
One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more; – book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.Collection: Reading