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There is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory and any man who does, is not worthy of one.

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.
Men
Memories
Incongruity
Since
Monuments
Idea
Monument
Doe
Dedicated
Ideas
Recognition
Need
Worthy
Great
Memory
Needs
Usually

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We are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point.
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And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where once stood a homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney rising our of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit to every wayfarer--apples that are bitter-sweet with the moral of times vicissitude.
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A human spirit may find no insufficiency of food fit for it, even in the Custom House.
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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.
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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.
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Do anything, save to lie down and die!
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We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
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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.
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There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.
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Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.
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The ideas of people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of the houses. All their interests extend over the earth's surface in a layer of that thickness. The meeting-house steeple reaches out of their sphere.
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The marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.
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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.
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When scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed with sky, and gradually transformed into it.
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Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!
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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.
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Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to the mind, and two minds conscious of the same thought, but as long as it remains unspoken their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea.
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Such has often been my apathy, when objects long sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my reach.
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You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.
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Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!
Nathaniel Hawthorne