“Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragical romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns.”

Little Women

“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.”

Little Men

“My definition [of a philosopher] is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down.”

Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”

Work: A Story of Experience

“All I have to say is, that you men have more liberty than you know what to do with, and we women haven't enough.”

The King of Clubs and
the Queen of Hearts

“There is no fairy-book half so wonderful as the lovely world all about us, if we only know how to read it.”

Morning-Glories

“I don't waste ink in poetry and pages of rubbish now. I've begun to live, and have no time for sentimental musing.”

Louisa May Alcott: Her Life,
Letters, and Journals

“To live for one's principles, at all costs, is a dangerous speculation . . .”

Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance

“When women set their hearts on anything it is a known fact that they seldom fail to accomplish it.”

Mrs. Podgers' Teapot

“Love bewilders the wisest, and it would make me quite blind or mad, I know; therefore I'd rather have nothing to do with it for a long, long while.”

Moods

“These hearts of ours are curious and contrary things.”

Little Women

“Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.”

An Old-Fashioned Girl

“One of the sweet things about pain and sorrow is that they show us how well we are loved, how much kindness there is in the world.”

Jack and Jill

“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”

Little Women

“It takes two flints to make a fire.”

Little Women