I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it. Nathaniel Hawthorne More Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne More Quotes From Nathaniel Hawthorne To be left alone in the wide world with scarcely a friend,--this makes the sadness which, striking its pang into the minds of the young and the affectionate, teaches them too soon to watch and interpret the spirit-signs of their own hearts. Nathaniel Hawthorne sadnessmindheart As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. Nathaniel Hawthorne systematicmirthhome If we would know what heaven is before we come thither, let us retire into the depths of our own spirits, and we shall find it there among holy thoughts and feelings. Nathaniel Hawthorne depthfeelingsheaven Who can tell where happiness may come, or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face? Nathaniel Hawthorne guestsmayhappiness Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man's inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere,-in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home? Nathaniel Hawthorne technologyhomebeautiful No fountain so small but that Heaven may be imaged in its bosom. Nathaniel Hawthorne fountainmayheaven It loves more readily than it hates. Nathaniel Hawthorne hatred-and-angerscarlethate The marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one. Nathaniel Hawthorne menmemoriesneeds Men of cold passions have quick eyes. Nathaniel Hawthorne passioneyemen We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate the holiness above us, when we deem that any act or enjoyment good in itself, is not good to do religiously. Nathaniel Hawthorne enjoymentholinesssin Let the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Nathaniel Hawthorne riskmade An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them. Nathaniel Hawthorne marriagehearthands It is a little remarkable, that - though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends - an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. Nathaniel Hawthorne takenlittlesbook Some maladies are rich and precious and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold. Nathaniel Hawthorne inheritancesicknessgold Masculine observers, if the birth-mark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness, without the semblance of a flaw. Nathaniel Hawthorne wishmightworld As the architecture of a country always follows the earliest structures, American architecture should be a refinement of the log-house. The Egyptian is so of the cavern and the mound; the Chinese, of the tent; the Gothic, of overarching trees; the Greek, of a cabin. Nathaniel Hawthorne housetreecountry I find myself at the extremity of a long beach. How gladly does the spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny deep! A greeting and a homage to the Sea! I descend over its margin, and dip my hand into the wave that meets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resounding roar is the Ocean’s voice of welcome. His salt breath brings a blessing along with it. Nathaniel Hawthorne oceanblessingbeach The traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. Nathaniel Hawthorne unseenlonelymay A throng of bearded men in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and other bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. Nathaniel Hawthorne doorsmenbook Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which supply good and beautiful results--the fragrance of celestial flowers--to the daily life of others. Nathaniel Hawthorne flowerevilbeautiful
