Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) was an American novelist and short-story writer whose fiction explores guilt, sin, repentance, and moral values.

Born at Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne was a descendant of the members of a Puritan family whose ancestors were infamous for their 1692 persecution of the alleged witches of Salem.

Hawthorne’s début novel was Fanshawe (1829.) His short-story collections include Twice-Told Tales (1837) and Mosses from an Old Manse (1846.) His magnum opus is the psychological novel The Scarlet Letter (1850,) a classic inquiry into the nature of American Puritanism and the New England conscience.

Hawthorne’s works include The House of the Seven Gables (1851,) The Blithedale Romance (1852,) The Marble Faun (1860) and the children’s books A Wonder Book (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Integrity

See! those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore place in your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Shame

I never, till now, had a friend who could give me repose; all have disturbed me, and, whether for pleasure or pain, it was still disturbance. But peace verflows from your heart into mine
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Romance

Insincerity in a man’s own heart must make all his enjoyments—all that concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representation.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Generosity is the flower of justice.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Generosity

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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Bravery, Courage

Yesterday I went out at about twelve, and visited the British Museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at once; and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart, wishing (Heaven forgive me!) that the Elgin marbles and the frieze of the Parthenon were all burnt into lime, and that the granite Egyptian statues were hewn and squared into building stones, and that the mummies had all turned to dust, two thousand years ago; and, in fine, that all the material relics of so many successive ages had disappeared with the generations that produced them. The present is burthened too much with the past.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

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
Topics: Writing, Words, Knowledge

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Passion

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Friends and Friendship

A woman’s chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Selfishness

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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Misfortunes

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
Topics: Conscience

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
Topics: Greatness, Inspiration

I have come to see the nonsense of trying to describe fine scenery.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Nature

But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Passion

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Literature

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Happiness, Joy

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Thoughts

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
Topics: Joy, Happiness

Men of cold passions have quick eyes.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Zealots have an idol, to which they consecrate themselves high priests, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Zeal

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 pang that rankles after it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Adversity

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Singing

It is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of all significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Literature

A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Here, dearest Eve,” he exclaims, “here is food.” “Well,” answered she, with the germ of a housewife stirring within her, “we have been so busy to-day that a picked-up dinner must serve
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Eating

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: People, Progress

What would a man do if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never better himself in cool solitude?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topics: Solitude

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *