Amos Bronson Alcott Quotes

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.

For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not only were no worse sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully established some claim to being considered a learned man.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

Partly, I like a bad reputation. But I also want a reputation of being a good person.

Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

Your women of honor, as you call em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and 'Tis scandal that they would avoid, not men.

Virtue is the same for women and men alike.

For men, to cultivate virtue is knowledge; for women, to renounce knowledge is virtue.

Personally, I have never considered myself corrupt or seen the need to be so. People are judged as what they are perceived to be.

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

A good woman is known by what she does; a good man by what he doesn't.

What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

Woman's honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil.

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.

Public esteem is the recompense of honest men.

Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.

Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.

Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone.

There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.

A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.