658 Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.

What we call real estate – the solid ground to build a house on – is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.

The daguerreotypist once whispered her that these marks betokened the oddities of the Pyncheon family, and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the life of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an unintelligible one, as such clews generally are. It was a feathered riddle; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if the egg had been addle!

The past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy of the present and the future.

The days of the far off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up and bear along with her but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame.

It is a little remarkable, that – though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends – an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public.

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

Let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious to follow out one’s day-dream to its natural consummation, although if the vision has been worth the having, it is certain never to be consummated otherwise than by a failure.

Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.