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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

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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.
May
Lights
Music
Depth
Revelry
Heart
Cause
Vividness
Every
Causes
Dungeon
Existence
Dungeons
Though
Tomb
Forget
Tombs
Light
Depths

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The ideas of people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of the houses. All their interests extend over the earth's surface in a layer of that thickness. The meeting-house steeple reaches out of their sphere.
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...Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.
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At almost every step in life we meet with young men from whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of whom, after careful inquiry, we never hear another word. Life certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely on their first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect after washing day.
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Happiness is like a butterfly.
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All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.
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It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.
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Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens and wallflowers need ruin to make them grow.
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In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.
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There is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance and, even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which we purchase it.
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When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.
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Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.
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The breath of peace was fanning her glorious brow, her head was bowed a very little forward, and a tress, escaping from its bonds, fell by the side of her pure white temple, and close to her just opened lips it hung there motionless! no breath disturbed its repose! She slept as an angel might sleep, having accomplished the mission of her God.
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When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it.
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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.
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What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
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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.
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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.
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A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first.
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Easy reading is damn hard writing.
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