658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

It is my opinion that a man’s soul may be buried and perish under a dung-heap, or in a furrow field, just as well as under a pile of money.

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.

She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be for good.

Still, there will be a connection with the long past – a reference to forgotten events and personages, and to manners, feelings, and opinions, almost or wholly obsolete – which, if adequately translated to the reader, would serve to illustrate how much of old material goes to make up the freshest novelty of human life.

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay, than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment.

The shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth.

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.

Be true, be true, be true.