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We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.

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.
Wrong
Right
Strenuous
Moderation
Resolution

More quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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.
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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The world, that grey-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable.
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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Bees are sometimes drowned in the honey which they collectso some writers are lost in their collected learning.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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Happiness is like a butterfly.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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To do nothing is the way to be nothing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Earth has one angel less and heaven one more, since yesterday.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of God's care and pity for every separate need.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
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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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
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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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne