Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.
Louisa May AlcottRead
Simple, genuine goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us.
Interpretation
True happiness and success come from genuine goodness rather than material wealth.
Louisa May Alcott emphasizes the enduring value of simple, genuine goodness as the foundation for a meaningful life. Unlike fame or wealth, which are fleeting, goodness remains as our true wealth, transcending our earthly existence and staying with us beyond this life.
In practice
In a graduation speech emphasizing values over material success.
Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.
You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.
"Stay" is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.
... swept into the giddy vortex which keeps so many young people revolving aimlessly, till they go down or are cast upon the shore, wrecks of what they might have been
It takes two flints to make a fire.
You are the gull, Jo, strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind, flying far out to sea, and happy all alone.
Your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.
Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out.
When you procrastinate, you're more likely to let your mind wander. That gives you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns.
Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
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