What is the voice of song when the world lacks the ear of taste?
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEWhat is the voice of song when the world lacks the ear of taste?
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEI have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThe thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
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 HAWTHORNEThe book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.
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 HAWTHORNESalt is white and pure – there is something holy in salt.
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 HAWTHORNEThe greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one’s self a fool.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEIf the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThere is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEMen of cold passions have quick eyes.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEI 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 HAWTHORNEJust as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of God’s care and pity for every separate need.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNEThere is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNENo man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE