Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.
But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and high, as when its glow was chastened by adversity.
What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.
Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them.
I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the h
Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated.
he seemed to be in quest for mental food, not heart sustenance.
There are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency—which I now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm.
Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield)
All have some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic.
Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?
When he is cheerful--when the sun shines into his mind--then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls!
... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones.
Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!
To the untrue man, the whole universe is false--it is impalpable--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.
A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away.
She has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose!
...such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?—such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart.
The horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it!
Jim Crow, moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned dance, in gingerbread.
Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction.
Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is always beyond our grasp but if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you.
Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is always just beyond your grasp but which if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you.
It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream it may be so the moment after death.