What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self! - Nathaniel Hawthorne
No 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 true. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield) - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
all brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman - Nathaniel Hawthorne
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. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Easy reading is damn hard writing. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash. - 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
Cannot you conceive that another man may wish well to the world and struggle for its good on some other plan than precisely that which you have laid down? - Nathaniel Hawthorne
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. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
On Andrew Jackson: "His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? - Nathaniel Hawthorne
She has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose! - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Words -- 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 Hawthorne
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Words - 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 Hawthorne
Life is made up of marble and mud. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Poichè il destino e gli eventi li avevano tenuti per tanto tempo separati, occorrevva che qualche cosa di lieve e come indifferente corresse avanti ad aprire le porte dell'anima a parole più gravi, suggerite da più gravi pensieri. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests. - Nathaniel Hawthorne