“The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.”
Introduction: The Custom-House
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Context: The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne 128
American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879) 1804–1864Related quotes

"Energized Enthusiasm : A Note On Theurgy" in The Equinox Vol. 1 no. 9 (Spring 1913).

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 57
The Great Queen is Amused.
High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982)

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
A literatura é a maneira mais agradável de ignorar a vida.
Variant: To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 116

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 955