658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you’ve scowled upon.

The truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognised a kindred wilderness in the human child.

And as for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life’s labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality.

It has been delicately wrought,” said the artist, calmly. “As I told you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence – call it magnetism, or what you will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled his own life into it. It has already lost its beauty; in a few moments more its mechanism would be irreparably injured.

The law we broke! – the sin here so awfully revealed! – let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God, – when we violated our reverence each for the other’s soul, – it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion.

The trees reflected in the river – they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. So are we.

Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person’s expense!

It is but for a moment, comparatively, that anything looks strange or startling – a truth that has the bitter and the sweet in it.