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The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.

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.
Thing
Mind
Attraction
Ultimately
Positive
Become

More quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere ... the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized.
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Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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A throng of bearded men in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and other bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
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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Ugliness without tact is horrible.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Such has often been my apathy, when objects long sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my reach.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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A screen... the scenery and the figures of life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribably difference, which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow, so much more attractive than the original.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Happiness is like a butterfly.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Dream strange things and make them look like truth.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Would all, who cherish such wild wishes, but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts, and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search, or a lifetime spent in vain!
Nathaniel Hawthorne