Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Come
Contact
Matter
Individuals
Contention
Heart
Approach
Purposes
Deep
Dread
Sides
Electric
Purpose
Seldom
Individual
Sudden
Another
Shock

More quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image
There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
We sometimes congratulate ourselves.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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
Image
It [Catholicism] supplies a multitude of external forms in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A man--poet, prophet, or whatever be may be--readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
Moonlight is sculpture.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
The divine chemistry works in the subsoil.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
Happiness is like a butterfly.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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
Image
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Image
A writer of story books! What kind of business in life-what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation-may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!
Nathaniel Hawthorne