658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster-and thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster--without man, as her acknowledged principal!

One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation until the colors fade and blacken out of sight or the canvas rot entirely away.

A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats. You may strip off the outer ones without doing much mischief, perhaps none at all ; but you keep taking off one after another, in expectation of coming to the inner nucleus, including the whole value of the matter. It proves, however, that there is no such nucleus, and that chastity is diffused through the whole series of coats, is lessened with the removal of each, and vanishes with the final one which you supposed would introduce you to the hidden pearl.

At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye.

The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

Moonlight is sculpture.

In short, the almost torpid creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion.