“A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well.”
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Author detail
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, were educated by their father, philosopher and teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at "Hillside". Like her character, "Jo March" in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, "and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences ..." For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays --"the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens." At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write -- anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"
Quotes
Showing 61-72 of 72
“A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well.”
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“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.”
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“It takes two flints to make a fire.”
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“People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays; men have to work and women to marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world.”
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“Housekeeping ain't no joke.”
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“I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think any one will...”
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“Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.”
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“What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?”
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“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.”
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“Girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say No when they mean Yes, and drive a man out of his wits for the fun of it.”
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“A faithful friend is a strong defense; And he that hath found him hath found a treasure.”
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“She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.”
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