Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying — Amos Bronson Alcott

"In the theocracy of the soul majorities do not rule. God and the saints; against them the rabble of sinners, with clamorous voices and uplifted hand, striving to silence the oracle of the private heart. Beelzebub marshals majorities. Prophets and reformers are always special enemies of his and his minions. Multitudes ever lie. Every age is a Judas, and betrays its Messiahs into the hands of the multitude. The voice of the private, not popular heart, is alone authentic."

"None can teach admirably if not loving his task."

"When one becomes indifferent to women, to children, and young people, he may know that he is superannuated, and has withdrawn from whatsoever is sweetest and purest in human existence."

"Right is the royal ruler alone; and he who rules with least restraint comes nearest to empire."

"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?"

"Believe, youth, despite all temptations, the oracle of deity in your own bosom. ’Tis the breath of God’s revelations,—the respiration of the Holy Ghost in your breast. Be faithful, not infidel, to its intuitions,—quench never its spirit,—dwell ever in its omniscience. So shall your soul be filled with light, and God be an indwelling fact,—a presence in the depths of your being."