Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

Most popular Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

Life is made up of marble and mud. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Life is made up of marble and mud.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables

life

A gush of violets along a wood path. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
A gush of violets along a wood path.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The American Notebooks

flowers

Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne Sketches From Memory

mountains

Mankind is earthen jugs with spirits in them. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Mankind is earthen jugs with spirits in them.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste? - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste?
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The Snow Image

songs taste

Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
When man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
When man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne Mosses from an Old Manse

singing

The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown

rage

Generosity consists not in the sum given, but in the manner in which it is bestowed. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Generosity consists not in the sum given, but in the manner in which it is bestowed.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
The world, that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
The world, that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables

the world

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

art

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly-arranged and well-provisioned breakfast-table. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly-arranged and well-provisioned breakfast-table.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

food

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

death

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

ambition

Bees are sometimes drowned (or suffocated) in the honey which they collect. So some writers are lost in their collected learning. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Bees are sometimes drowned (or suffocated) in the honey which they collect. So some writers are lost in their collected learning.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne Passages From the American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne

writers

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

God nature immortality

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 quote.
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
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally.  Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us [on] a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally.  Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us [on] a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne

happiness pursuit

No man, for any considerable time, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
No man, for any considerable time, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

be yourself character

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 the true. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
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 the true.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter

hypocrisy authenticity

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne The Blithedale Romance

obstacles heroism

Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit my taste; solid and substantial, written on strength of beef and through inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth, and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit my taste; solid and substantial, written on strength of beef and through inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth, and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at the 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. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. - Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at the 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. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.
— 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 The Scarlet Letter

love and hate