Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer of the Romantic era. He is best known for his works "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of Seven Gables". Hawthorne's works often focus on history, morality, and religion, and he was one of the major authors of the American Renaissance.
What is the most famous quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne ?
Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
What can you learn from Nathaniel Hawthorne (Life Lessons)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne emphasizes the importance of understanding the consequences of our actions and the power of redemption. He encourages us to take responsibility for our mistakes and to strive for self-improvement.
- Hawthorne also reminds us to be mindful of the impact our decisions can have on others and to be aware of the potential for hypocrisy in our lives.
- Finally, Hawthorne encourages us to strive for self-awareness and to be honest with ourselves and with others in order to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
The most terrific Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes that are easy to memorize and remember
Following is a list of the best Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes, including various Nathaniel Hawthorne inspirational quotes, and other famous sayings by 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 the true.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
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.
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.
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
Moonlight is sculpture.
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence.
Caresses, 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.
Mystic quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne
When 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.
Let the black flower blossom as it may!
If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.
What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow.
Life is made up of marble and mud.
Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.
To 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.
If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever.
Quotations by Nathaniel Hawthorne that are puritanical and allegorical
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
The breath of peace was fanning her glorious brow, her head was bowed a very little forward, and a tress, escaping from its bonds, fell by the side of her pure white temple, and close to her just opened lips; it hung there motionless! no breath disturbed its repose! She slept as an angel might sleep, having accomplished the mission of her God.
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing.
Happiness is like a butterfly.
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.
Cupid in these latter times has probably laid aside his bow and arrow, and uses fire-arms -- a pistol -- perhaps a revolver.
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.
A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.
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.
The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!
I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
Men of cold passions have quick eyes.
Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.
There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.
I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.
A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
The marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.
See! those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore place in your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame.
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.
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.
It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.
Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.
She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.
I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh it was. My very heart leapt with the sound.
She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.
Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.
A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
Sunlight is like the breath of life to the pomp of autumn.
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 it be obeyed.
In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.