Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

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  • Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Claude Mitchell Simpson (1972). “The American notebooks”, Ohio State Univ Pr
  • When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality.

    Beautiful   Eye   Artist  
    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.1768, e-artnow
  • Accuracy is twin brother to honesty, and inaccuracy to dishonesty.

    "Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker, containing over a thousand subjects alphabetically and systematically arranged". Book by Charles Simmons, p. 20. Chapter: "Accuracy", 1852.
  • She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

    The Scarlet Letter ch. 18 (1850)
  • The traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2012). “Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories”, p.34, Courier Corporation
  • When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtle process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod-or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly-thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1993). “Nathaniel Hawthorne: three complete novels”, Gramercy
  • A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.166
  • We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2005). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.124, Prestwick House Inc
  • It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2010). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.45, Bibliolis Books
  • Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream

  • At almost every step in life we meet with young men from whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of whom, after careful inquiry, we never hear another word. Life certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely on their first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect after washing day.

  • Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.408, e-artnow
  • 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.

  • Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.

    Love  
    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013). “Mosses from an Old Manse (Annotated Edition)”, p.39, Jazzybee Verlag
  • I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Over 120 Short Stories Including Rare Sketches From Magazines of the Renowned American Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.703, e-artnow
  • Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.

    "Marble Faun the Romance of Monte Beni Vo".
  • Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Essays, Letters and Memoirs (Illustrated): The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, Tanglewood Tales, Birthmark, Ghost of Doctor Harris… (Including Biographies and Literary Criticism)”, p.349, e-artnow
  • Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world , individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. (Wakefield)

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)”, p.1613, Delphi Classics
  • Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

    Love  
    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.435, e-artnow
  • Unquestionably we do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world; and I myself have felt the heart-throb at sight of it, as sensibly as other men.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013). “Passages From The French And Italian Note-Books (Annotated Edition)”, p.343, Jazzybee Verlag
  • Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!

    Love  
    The Scarlet Letter ch. 15 (1850)
  • A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, Grimshawe's Secret and Biography”, p.461, e-artnow
  • Such has often been my apathy, when objects long sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my reach.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)”, p.2755, Delphi Classics
  • But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.

    The Scarlet Letter ch. 5 (1850)
  • It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Karin Jacobson (2004). “CliffsComplete The Scarlet Letter”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Would Time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should all be young men, all of us, and until Doom's Day.

    "Twice Told Tales". Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1837, 1851.
  • Man's own youth is the world's youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth's granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, Grimshawe's Secret and Biography”, p.461, e-artnow
  • ...Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1935). “The Scarlet Letter (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.81, Sparklesoup LLC
  • You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

  • I do detest all offices - all, at least, that are held on a political tenure.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.1191, e-artnow
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 298 quotes from the Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, starting from July 4, 1804! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!