Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Age: 59 †
Born: 1804
Born: July 4
Died: 1864
Died: May 18
Diplomat
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Salem
Massachusetts
Nathaniel Hathorne
Monsieur de l'Aubépine
N. H.
Good
Virtue
Combine
Evil
Dictionary
Words
Powerless
Language
Innocence
Hands
Innocent
Become
Honesty
Character
Integrity
Writing
Standing
Potent
More quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Bees are sometimes drowned in the honey which they collectso some writers are lost in their collected learning.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to the mind, and two minds conscious of the same thought, but as long as it remains unspoken their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized.
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
What is the voice of song when the world lacks the ear of taste?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Yesterday I 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. The present is burdened too much with the past.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The present is burdened too much with the past. We have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what is warm with life, and immediately around us.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike. Times change, and people change and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Sunlight is like the breath of life to the pomp of autumn.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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
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
It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Happiness is like a butterfly.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Or-but this more rarely happened-she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother, in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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
Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
