658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.

You are the only person in the world that was ever necessary to me.

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.

She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.

And what shall we live on while I am writing it?

If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.

Dr Johnson's morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.