658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!

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

Pleasant is a rainy winter’s day, within doors! The best study for such a day, or the best amusement, – call it which you will, – is a book of travels, describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one.

Salt is white and pure – there is something holy in salt.

Technologies of easy travel give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot?

I sometimes fancy,” said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always made a strong impression, “that Rome – mere Rome – will crowd everything else out of my heart.

Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own blood!

Go, Annie,” murmured he; “I have deceived myself, and must suffer for it. I yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, and dreamed that you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, Annie, that should admit you into my secrets.

Happiness is like a butterfly – the more you chase, the more subtle, but if you stop moving and quietly wait for it to land on you.