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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.

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.
Matter
Taste
Even
Choose
People
Stop
Point
Happy
Making
Happier
Might
Ridiculous
Without
Short

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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.
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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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A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.
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Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
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The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.
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The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.
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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.
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Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.
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How is it possible to sayan unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!
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A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon.
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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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Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
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This world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease.
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It [Catholicism] supplies a multitude of external forms in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested.
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Of all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death.
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Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens and wallflowers need ruin to make them grow.
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Let the black flower blossom as it may!
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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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Dream strange things and make them look like truth.
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