Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

“The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadow scope of time, and, living once for all eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.”

“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted for too long a series of generations in the same worn-out soil.”

“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.”

“Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.”

“Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.”

“All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.”

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

“Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.”

“A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon.”

“You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.”

“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.”

“The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a...”

“A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.”

“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 pa...”

“Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.”

“My fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.”

“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...”

“We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.”

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