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 More Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne More Quotes From Nathaniel Hawthorne Pleasant is a rainy winter's day, within doors! The best study for such a day, or the best amusement,—call it which you will,—is a book of travels, describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one Nathaniel Hawthorne winter doors book Those with whom we can apparently become well acquainted in a few moments are generally the most difficult to rightly know and to understand. Nathaniel Hawthorne difficult moments character The Christian faith is a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows. Nathaniel Hawthorne cathedrals christian window The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one's self a fool. Nathaniel Hawthorne self hero doubt Great men need to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole world, in order to conceive their great ideas or perform their great deeds. That is, there must be an atmosphere of greatness round about them. A hero cannot be a hero unless in an heroic world. Nathaniel Hawthorne greatness hero men Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or perchance of a hundred centuries. Nathaniel Hawthorne genius office age In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. Nathaniel Hawthorne dark heart grieving Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. Nathaniel Hawthorne nature heart night I wonder that we Americans love our country at all, it having no limits and no oneness; and when you try to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away except one's native State; -neither can you seize hold of that, unless you tear it out of the Union, bleeding and quivering. Nathaniel Hawthorne love country fall There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. Nathaniel Hawthorne evil success men What a sweet reverence is that when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal and almost chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart. Nathaniel Hawthorne heart sweet life As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers. Nathaniel Hawthorne degrees encouragement hope 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 events ghost feelings To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Nathaniel Hawthorne next-day toil years She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... 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. Nathaniel Hawthorne strong home teacher It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. Nathaniel Hawthorne spheres humanity letters When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. Nathaniel Hawthorne multitudes deceived eye 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 true. Nathaniel Hawthorne Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is just out of grasp... But if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. Nathaniel Hawthorne
