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The present is burthened too much with the past.

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.
Past
Much
Present

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His stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep and good in the morning, too, because then we can dream about them awake. (Cowslip)
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What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in?
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All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.
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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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Bees are sometimes drowned in the honey which they collectso some writers are lost in their collected learning.
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Moonlight is sculpture.
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This dull river has a deep religion of its own so, let us trust, has the dullest human soul, though, perhaps, unconsciously.
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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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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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It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman
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If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances.
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If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom.
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It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.
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The breath of peace was fanning her glorious brow, her head was bowed a very little forward, and a tress, escaping from its bonds, fell by the side of her pure white temple, and close to her just opened lips it hung there motionless! no breath disturbed its repose! She slept as an angel might sleep, having accomplished the mission of her God.
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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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I do detest all offices - all, at least, that are held on a political tenure.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that concerns him, unreal so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representation.
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!
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Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.
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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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