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“It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thoughts alone suffice them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“Shall we never never get rid of this Past?… It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The House of the Seven Gables

Source: The House of the Seven Gables

“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. "We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Old Manse": The Author Makes the Reader Acquainted with His Abode http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/tom.html from Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)

“Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XXIV: Conclusion
Context: Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence: — "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"

“What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The House of the Seven Gables

Source: The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Ch. XI : The Arched Window

“In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter II: The Market-Place

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart… converted it into a tomb.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XXIV: Conclusion
Context: It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.

“She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Birthmark" from Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)

“It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book Young Goodman Brown

Source: "Young Goodman Brown"
Context: "Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."

“When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The House of the Seven Gables

Source: The House of the Seven Gables

“Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1838
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)