Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes - page 6

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for works such as "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables." His writing often explores themes of sin, morality, and the complexities of human nature. He is remembered as a major figure in nineteenth-century American literature. Here are 181 of his quotes:

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart... converted it into a tomb.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Happiness, in this world, if it comes at all, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and it is never attained.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Holligsworth would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while I should be treading the unknown path.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Let us forget the other names of American statesmen, that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the loftiest - WASHINGTON.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

As far as my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the social qualities; and in this age, there appears to be a fellow-feeling among them, which had not heretofore been developed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

In old times, the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the northern Indians, coming down upon them from this mountain rampart, through some defile known only to themselves. It is indeed a wondrous path.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

How slowly I have made my way in life! How much is still to be done!

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. "We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

America is now wholly given over to a d-d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash - and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the Lamplighter, and other books neither better nor worse?

Nathaniel Hawthorne

As far as my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the social qualities; and in this age, there appears to be a fellow-feeling among them, which had not heretofore been developed. As men, they ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their fellow-men; and as authors, they have thrown aside their proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a generous brotherhood.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to do religiously.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

What a sweet reverence is that, when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal, and almost chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Most people are so constituted that they can only be virtuous in a certain routine an irregular course of life demoralizes them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne