Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868–69) follows the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—as they come of age in Civil War–era New England. The story opens with a lean Christmas and a mother who teaches her girls to find purpose in work, kindness, and self-discipline. Each sister has a distinct temperament: Meg’s longing for comfort and order, Jo’s fierce independence and love of words, Beth’s quiet goodness, and Amy’s ambition and eye for beauty.
Across the two parts of the novel, the girls take on paid work, care for neighbors, quarrel and reconcile, discover their talents, and learn where they fall short. Romantic hopes arise and shift; illnesses test the family’s courage; money is scarce, yet affection and moral guidance are rich. The neighbor boy, Laurie, becomes family, and the March household grows through weddings, losses, and new beginnings.
Alcott balances domestic scenes with big questions: What is “women’s work”? What makes art “genius” rather than talent? How do we love well without losing ourselves? The answers arrive not by lecture, but through trial and habit—burnt breakfasts, botched parties, broken tempers, and brave apologies. By the end, the sisters stand as different kinds of “little women,” each choosing a life that fits her character while holding fast to the love that raised them.
I like adventures, and I’m going to find some; I’m tired of being told that girls mustn’t run and climb and laugh out loud, as if joy were a crime, when all I want is to use the strength I have, and see where it will take me, and make something worth the trouble of being alive.
fromLittle WomenbyWe discovered, after a time, that we couldn’t live on love alone; that bread must be earned, and tempers kneaded, and small economies practiced, if two foolish young things were to keep house with any peace; and so we learned to make the trials into lessons, and the lessons into habits, and the habits into a very decent happiness.
fromLittle WomenbyBetter be happy old maids than unhappy wives, and teach your girls to be contented with the home you have, and the friends you keep, and the duties that lie nearest; make this home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your own, if ever they come, and contented here if they are not.
fromLittle WomenbyBe comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds; and if you wait a little, the wind will shift, and the moon will look out, and you will see that you were walking straight all the while, though you thought you had lost the road.
fromLittle WomenbyWe cannot do much, but we can make our little sacrifices and deny ourselves, and be patient, and keep cheerful, and so perhaps help those who suffer more, and make the waiting shorter for the rest, if we keep our hands busy and our hearts light.
fromLittle WomenbyBe worthy, love, and love will come; for it is not won by clamors, nor bought with gold, but grows like a flower where there is light and warmth, and dies if foolish hands pluck at it in haste, or shut it up in a dark place to be kept.
fromLittle WomenbyI like good strong words that mean something, and I can’t abide the little elegant ones that say nothing at all; I had rather have a single honest sentence, rough and true, than a page of silken phrases that slip through your fingers and leave you empty-handed when you most want help.
fromLittle WomenbyI think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play.
fromLittle WomenbyI don’t like reformers, and I hope you never try to be one; reformers are apt to forget that people can be led by a little kindness oftener than driven by much scolding, and I like the sort of goodness that makes itself beautiful first, and then others wish to copy it.
fromLittle WomenbyI will try and be what he loves to call me—a little woman—and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here, where I am, as well as I can, because I see now that courage isn’t only for soldiers, and battles are fought in kitchens and sickrooms and hearts, where no drum is heard, and no flag is flying.
fromLittle WomenbyThere are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help in the right way, and try to do our duty bravely; for though the burdens are heavy, they grow lighter as we share them, and the road, though rough at first, gets easier to the feet that keep on walking.
fromLittle WomenbyI’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.
fromLittle Womenby