But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Categorized in : Feelings Ghost Events

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

motivational inspirational life

Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

release found

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

being-yourself depression men

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

greatness self-esteem inspirational

The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

law-of-attraction mind positive

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

honesty writing integrity

If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

form would-be letters

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

literature happens forests

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

way

If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

age heart years

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

hate spiritual heart

And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

long-ago waiting world

I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

black india heart

Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

years

Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

echoes mirrors reflection

Life is made up of marble and mud.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

mud made life

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

perspective artist thinking

When scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed with sky, and gradually transformed into it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

earth sky clouds

Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

rays light faith

Do anything, save to lie down and die!

Nathaniel Hawthorne

down-and dies lying