“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.”

“Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.”

“…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.”

“Young people seldom turn out as one predicts, so it is of little use to expect anything,' said Mrs. Meg with a sigh. 'If our children are good and useful men and women, we should be satisfied; yet it's very natural to wish them to be brilliant and successful.”

“You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.”

“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.”

“Amy's lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it till long afterward; men seldom do,—for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do; then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it; if it fails, they generously give her the whole.”