Quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne

But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, the thoughts that had seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest so quietly, revived again.

It is odd enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life—the life of degenerated mortals—from the life of Paradise. Eve had no dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day.

WWith Heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the Devil!

Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing!

What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow.

It depresses me to look at old frescos, responded the Count; it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to answer as a penance.

It is as clear to me as sunshine–were there any in the sky–that the greatest possible stumbling-blocks in the path of human happiness and improvement, are these heaps of bricks, and stones, consolidated with mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with spike-nails, which men painfully contrive for their own torment, and call them house and home! The soul needs air; a wide sweep and frequent change of it.

No longer ago than this morning, I was old. I remember looking in the glass, and wondering at my own gray hair, and the wrinkles, many and deep, right across my brow, and the furrows down my cheeks, and the prodigious trampling of crow's feet about my temples! It was too soon! I could not bear it! Age had no right to come! I had not lived!

With the lapse of every moment, the garden grew more picturesque;

Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boyish artists for your companion," said Miriam, when she found the Italian youth at her side.

The truth is, however, that the laboring oar was with our unpolished companions; it being far easier to condescend than to accept of condescension

All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language.

They are unavoidable at this moment, standing, as you do, on the outer verge of your long seclusion, and peopling the world with ugly shapes, which you will soon find to be as unreal as the giants and ogres of a child's story-book. I find nothing so singular in life, as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it. So it will be with what you think so terrible.

By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places — whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest — where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot.

When men seek only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily granted - and so well deserved!

The staunch, old soakers, on the other hand men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by way of blood usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and

Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth?

there was something of the women molded into the great, stalwart frame of Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it; as men often are of what is best in them

It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy or too awkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard the real actors in life's stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact, that the former are usually fain to make it palatable to their self-love, by assuming that these active and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, which they choose to deem higher and more important. Thus

Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal. Could the departed, whoever he may be, return in a week after his decease, he would almost invariably find himself at a higher or lower point than he had formerly occupied, on the scale of public appreciation.

Lo! there ye stand, my children, said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream! Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness.

Imagination, by casting certain circumstances judicially into the shade, may see much to admire

Homeless as he had been,-continually changing his whereabout,and,therefore,responsible neither to public opinion nor to individuals,-putting off one exterior, and snatching up another, to be soon shifted for a third,-he had never violated the innermost man but had carried his conscience along with him.

Why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?" "Not thy soul," he answered, with another smile. "No, not thine!