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Easy reading is damn hard writing.

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.
Reading
Easy
Hard
Writing
Crafts
Damn
Inspire
Written
Powerful

More quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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I have come to see the nonsense of attempting to describe fine scenery. There is no such possibility. If scenery could be adequately reproduced in words, there would have been no need of God's making it in reality.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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We must not think too unkindly even of the east wind. It is not, perhaps, a wind to be loved, even in its benignest moods but there are seasons when I delight to feel its breath upon my cheek, though it be never advisable to throw open my bosom and take it into my heart, as I would its gentle sisters of the south and west.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Let the attempt be made, at whatever risk.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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Unquestionably we do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world and I myself have felt the heart-throb at sight of it, as sensibly as other men.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Moonlight is sculpture.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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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The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Man is a wretch without woman but woman is a monster-and thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster--without man, as her acknowledged principal!
Nathaniel Hawthorne