Quote

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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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.
Needs
Upon
Round
Men
Order
Rounds
World
Cannot
Shoulders
Ideas
Atmosphere
Need
Deeds
Lifted
Whole
Greatness
Conceive
Must
Hero
Heroic
Great
Unless
Perform

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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.
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Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
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Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.
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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.
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Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.
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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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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.
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Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied.
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Do anything, save to lie down and die!
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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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There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life but circumstances may rouse it to activity.
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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?
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The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.
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Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
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A vast deal of human sympathy runs along the electric line of needlework, stretching from the throne to the wicker chair of the humble seamstress.
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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.
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We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream it may be so the moment after death.
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A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
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Dream strange things and make them look like truth.
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