Top 100 Quotes About Nathaniel Hawthorne
#1. The Holy Spirit's instruments have no consciousness of His purpose; if they imagine they have, it is a pretty sure token that they are NOT His instruments. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Eugene H. Peterson
#2. My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
John Irving
#3. When I was a child, I loved 'The Marble Faun' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reason I liked it was because it had a beautiful binding. When you're a kid, you like books because they're pretty to look at, and this one had a white calfskin cover and gold edges. That was enough to make me love it.
Edmund White
#4. Your biggest influences are the earliest ones. When I was young, I was very influenced by the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Brad Holland
#5. The actual American childhood is less Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney than Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.
Susan Cheever
#6. There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. - NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
J.D. Robb
#7. My work holds up the mirror to hypocrisy, which puts me in a tradition of American writing that reaches back to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ishmael Reed
#8. There is more suspense, more dramatic torque, in one page of [Nathaniel] Hawthorne's heart-racked ruminations onthe Christian consciencethaninall Demi Moore's woodland gallops and horizontal barn dancing.
Anthony Lane
#9. Goodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!
Lemony Snicket
#10. The American, who up to the present day, has evinced, in Literature, the largest brain with the largest heart, that man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Herman Melville
#11. Calm, gentle, passionless as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#12. A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married state.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#13. They looked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet today ...
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#14. When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#15. Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#16. But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price-purchased with all she had-her mother's only treasure!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#18. 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
#19. The staunch, old soakers, on the other hand men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by way of blood usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and,
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#20. What a sweet reverence is that when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal and almost chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#21. 'What is the Unpardonable Sin' asked the lime-burner 'It is a sin that grew within my own breast', replied Ethan Brand 'The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God'.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#22. I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#23. The traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#24. Then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#25. It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to the worldliest of us.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#26. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#27. Man's own youth is the world's youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth's granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#28. The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my bachelor-apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly-man of rather shabby appearance met me in an obscure part of the street.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#29. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#30. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which supply good and beautiful results
the fragrance of celestial flowers
to the daily life of others.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#31. What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#32. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#33. there was something of the women molded into the great, stalwart frame of Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it; as men often are of what is best in them
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#35. It was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#36. I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#37. And we have so far improved upon the custom of Adam and Eve, that we generally furnish forth our feasts with a portion of some delicate calf or lamb, whose unspotted innocence entitles them to the happiness of becoming our sustenance.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#38. There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow
the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#39. My 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 Hawthorne
#40. But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#41. O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom! By
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#42. If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#43. Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world , individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. (Wakefield)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#44. There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#46. 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
#47. It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thoughts alone suffice them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#48. 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
#49. She knocked a third time, three regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for, modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help playing some tune of what we feel , upon the senseless wood.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#50. In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#51. Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or perchance of a hundred centuries.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#52. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#54. You are partly crazy, and partly imbecile; a ruin, a failure, as almost everybody is,
though some in less degree, or less perceptibly, than their fellows.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#55. There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings as now in October.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#56. It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#57. Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden ... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#58. Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#59. As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#61. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehoods, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#62. Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#63. We are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier; but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#64. 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
#65. Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#66. Success presented itself as an impossibility, and the hope of it as a wild hallucination.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#67. The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#68. She wanted - what some people want throughout life - a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#69. There is no greater bugbear than a strong willed relative in the circle of his own connections.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#70. Thou are my only reality
all other people are but shadows to me: all events and actions, in which thou dost not mingle, are but dreams.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#73. There 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 Hawthorne
#74. Sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles;
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#75. The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#76. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#78. The 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 Hawthorne
#79. That Jim Crow there in the window," answered the urchin, holding out a cent, and pointing to the gingerbread figure that had attracted his notice, as he loitered along to school; "the one that has not a broken foot.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#81. The most powerful minds are not always the best acquainted with their own feelings.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#83. Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release ...
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#85. It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#86. The subject had reference to secret sin and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#88. But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#89. A human spirit may find no insufficiency of food fit for it, even in the Custom House.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#90. Ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#92. Another phenomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, would have been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether fires of Tophet.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#93. I wonder that we Americans love our country at all, it having no limits and no oneness; and when you try to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away except one's native State; -neither can you seize hold of that, unless you tear it out of the Union, bleeding and quivering.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#94. This was a freedom essential to the health even of a character so little susceptible of morbid influences as that of Phoebe. The old house [with dry rot in its structure and perhaps also in its inhabitants]; ... it was not good to breathe no other atmosphere that that.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#95. May not one man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#96. In my own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can thus magnanimously persist in error.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#97. It is a little remarkable, that - though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends - an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#98. Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#99. Yesterday I visited the British Museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at once; and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart. The present is burdened too much with the past.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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