Quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

Sunlight is painting.

A man--poet, prophet, or whatever be may be--readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered.

What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?

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.

There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.

Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster-and thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster--without man, as her acknowledged principal!

London is like the grave in one respect -- any man can make himself at home there; and whenever a man finds himself homeless elsewhere, he had better either die or go to London.

The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.

It is my opinion that a man's soul may be buried and perish under a dung-heap, or in a furrow field, just as well as under a pile of money.

His stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning, too, because then we can dream about them awake. (Cowslip)

But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price-purchased with all she had-her mother's only treasure!

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence.

She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.

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.

The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.

Just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of God's care and pity for every separate need.

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

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.

Happiness is like a butterfly.

What we need for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for it.

Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.