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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

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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.
Men
Full
Success
Evil
Settled
Moment
Wickedness
Moments
Execution
Nature
Resolve
Thing
Except
Good
Either

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What is there so ponderous in evil, that a thumb's bigness of it should outweigh the mass of things not evil, which were heaped into the other scale!
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There can be...no power...to disclose...the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them until the day when all hidden things be revealed.
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it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.
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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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Keep the imagination sane--that is one of the truest conditions of communion with heaven.
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Of all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death.
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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.
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Some maladies are rich and precious and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold.
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The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.
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Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
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He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure.
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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 the true.
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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.
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Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
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To do nothing is the way to be nothing.
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In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.
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In an ancient though not very populous settlement, in a retired corner of one of the New England states, arise the walls of a seminary of learning, which, for the convenience of a name, shall be entitled Harley College.
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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.
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It [Catholicism] supplies a multitude of external forms in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested.
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