658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A man – poet, prophet, or whatever be may be – readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered.

Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth;.

I’m as provocative of tears as an onion!

Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister’s miserable experience, we put only this into sentence: Be True! Be True! Be True! Show freely to the world if not the worst, yet some trait whereby the worst can be inferred.

Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view.

It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman.

The besetting sin of a philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At some point of his course – I know not exactly when or where – he is tempted to palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the importance of his public ends renders it allowable to throw aside his private conscience.