Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

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!”

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!

— Spoken by a character · XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER

“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”

— Spoken by a character · XXII. THE PROCESSION

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

— Spoken by a character · XII. THE MINISTER’S VIGIL

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

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!

It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

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.

It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to the worldliest of us.

— Spoken by a character · XII. A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN