Quotes from Louisa May Alcott

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty.

Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!

A house needs a grandma in it.

Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow them.

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I cannot reach them, but I can look up, and see their beauty; believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

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.

If you dear little girls would only learn what real beauty is, and not pinch and starve and bleach yourselves out so, you'd save an immense deal of time and money and pain. A happy soul in a healthy body makes the best sort of beauty for man or woman.

If life is often so hard as this, I don't see how we ever shall get through it.

Like all happiness, it did not last long.

The spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.

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

Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life.

Have a regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.

Cheerfulness can change misfortune into love and friends.

I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us.

I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all.

A principle that can't bear being laughed at, frowned on, and cold-shouldered, isn't worthy of the name.

I'm tired of praise; and love is very sweet, when it is simple and sincere like this.

I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it.

Well, if I can't be happy, I can be useful, perhaps.

Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?

We don't choose our talents; but we needn't hide them in a napkin because they are not just what we want.

If I didn't care about doing right and didn't feel uncomfortable doing wrong, I should get on capitally.