Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes - Page 2

All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language.

Thou are my only reality- all other people are but shadows to me: all events and actions, in which thou dost not mingle, are but dreams.

Ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical.

To plant a family! This idea is at the bottom of most of the wrong and mischief which men do. The truth is, that, once in every half century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors.

Poichè il destino e gli eventi li avevano tenuti per tanto tempo separati, occorrevva che qualche cosa di lieve e come indifferente corresse avanti ad aprire le porte dell'anima a parole più gravi, suggerite da più gravi pensieri.

Siate sinceri! Siate sempre sinceri! E mostrate francamente al mondo, se non proprio il vostro lato peggiore, almeno qualche aspetto, da cui possa essere noto il peggiore male che è in voi.

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.

There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.

On Andrew Jackson: "His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool.

Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction.

Do anything, save to lie down and die!

In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.

... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones.

Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?

Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield)

Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat.

All have some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic.

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one.

The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition.