A singular fact, that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEA singular fact, that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEAt no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThere is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory; and any man who does, is not worthy of one.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEDream strange things and make them look like truth.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThis world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEOh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEI find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEWords – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThough we speak nonsense, God will pick out the meaning of it.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThere is an alchemy of quiet malice by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEMy fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEEvery individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEEasy reading is damn hard writing.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNETo the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEWhen scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed with sky, and gradually transformed into it.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNECaresses, 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.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE