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The Whole Forest Was Peopled With Frightful Sounds-the Creaking Of The Trees, The Howling Of Wild Beasts, And The Yell Of Indians; While Sometimes The Wind Tolled Like A Distant Church Bell, And Sometimes Gave A Broad Roar Around The Traveler, As If All Nature Were Laughing Him To Scorn. But He Was Himself The Chief Horror Of The Scene, And Shrank Not From Its Other Horrors.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Whole Forest Was

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Whole Forest Was Peopled With Frightful Sounds-the Creaking Of The Trees, The Howling Of Wild Beasts, And The Yell Of Indians; While Sometimes The Wind Tolled Like A Distant Church Bell, And Sometimes Gave A Broad Roar Around The Traveler, As If All Nature Were Laughing Him To Scorn. But He Was Himself The Chief Horror Of The Scene, And Shrank Not From Its Other Horrors.

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The Traveller Knows Not Who May Be Concealed By The Innumerable Trunks And The Thick Boughs Overhead; So That With Lonely Footsteps He May Yet Be Passing Through An Unseen Multitude.

There Is Evil In Every Human Heart, Which May Remain Latent, Perhaps, Through The Whole Of Life; But Circumstances May Rouse It To Activity.

Come, Therefore, And Let Us Fling Mud At Them!

When A Writer Calls His Work A Romance, It Need Hardly Be Observed That He Wishes To Claim A Certain Latitude, Both As To Its Fashion And Material, Which He Would Not Have Felt Himself Entitled To Assume Had He Professed To Be Writing A Novel.

He Had Been Driven Hither By The Impulse Of That Remorse Which Dogged Him Everywhere, And Whose Own Sister And Closely Linked Companion Was That Cowardice Which Invariably Drew Him Back, With Her Tremulous Gripe, Just When The Other Impulse Had Hurried Him To The Verge Of A Disclosure.

Bees Are Sometimes Drowned In The Honey Which They Collectso Some Writers Are Lost In Their Collected Learning.

He Whose Genius Appears Deepest And Truest Excels His Fellows In Nothing Save The Knack Of Expression; He Throws Out Occasionally A Lucky Hint At Truths Of Which Every Human Soul Is Profoundly Though Unutterably Conscious.

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.

To The Untrue Man, The Whole Universe Is False- It Is Impalpable- It Shrinks To Nothing Within His Grasp. And He Himself Is In So Far As He Shows Himself In A False Light, Becomes A Shadow, Or, Indeed, Ceases To Exist.

Eager Souls, Mystics And Revolutionaries, May Propose To Refashion The World In Accordance With Their Dreams; But Evil Remains, And So Long As It Lurks In The Secret Places Of The Heart, Utopia Is Only The Shadow Of A Dream

Ugliness Without Tact Is Horrible.

Life Is Made Up Of Marble And Mud.

Nothing Gives A Sadder Sense Of Decay Than This Loss Or Suspension Of The Power To Deal With Unaccustomed Things, And To Keep Up With The Swiftness Of The Passing Moment. [speaking Of Self-posed Isolation In Old Age.]

Passing Moments

We Men Of Study, Whose Heads Are In Our Books, Have Need To Be Straightly Looked After! We Dream In Our Waking Moments, And Walk In Our Sleep.

The Love Of Posterity Is The Consequence Of The Necessity Of Death. If A Man Were Sure Of Living Forever Here, He Would Not Care About His Offspring.

The Trees Reflected In The River - They Are Unconscious Of A Spiritual World So Near To Them. So Are We.

Cannot You Conceive That Another Man May Wish Well To The World And Struggle For Its Good On Some Other Plan Than Precisely That Which You Have Laid Down?

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.

Sunlight Is Like The Breath Of Life To The Pomp Of Autumn.

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)

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.

A Pure Hand Needs No Glove To Cover It.

Human Nature Will Not Flourish, Any More Than A Potato, If It Be Planted And Replanted, For Too Long A Series Of Generations, In The Same Worn-out Soil. My Children Have Had Other Birthplaces, And, So Far As Their Fortunes May Be Within My Control, Shall Strike Their Roots Into Unaccustomed Earth.

A Man's Bewilderment Is The Measure Of His Wisdom.

No Fountain So Small But That Heaven May Be Imaged In Its Bosom.

The Fiend In His Own Shape Is Less Hideous Than When He Rages In The Breast Of Men.

Accuracy Is Twin Brother To Honesty, And Inaccuracy To Dishonesty.

The Love Of Science To Rival The Love Of Woman, In Its Depth And Absorbing Energy.

Happiness In This World, When It Comes, Comes Incidentally. Make It The Object Of Pursuit, And It Leads Us A Wild-goose Chase, And Is Never Attained. Follow Some Other Object, And Very Possibly We May Find That We Have Caught Happiness Without Dreaming Of It.

I Want Nothing To Do With Politicians. Their Hearts Wither Away, And Die Out Of Their Bodies. Their Consciences Are Turned To India-rubber, Or To Some Substance As Black As That, And Which Will Stretch As Much.

What Other Dungeon Is So Dark As One's Own Heart! What Jailer So Inexorable As One's Self!

I Love My Mother, But There Has Been, Ever Since My Boyhood, A Sort Of Coldness Of Intercourse Between Us, Such As Is Apt To Come Between People Of Strong Feelings.

It Was One Of Those Moments—which Sometimes Occur Only At The Interval Of Years—when A Man's Moral Aspect Is Faithfully Revealed To His Mind's Eye. Not Improbably, He Had Never Before Viewed Himself As He Did Now.

Death Possesses A Good Deal, Of Real Estate, Namely, The Graveyard In Every Town.

Moonlight Is Sculpture.

A Grave, Wherever Found, Preaches A Short And Pithy Sermon To The Soul.

If We Take The Freedom To Put A Friend Under Our Microscope, We Thereby Insulate Him From Many Of His True Relations, Magnify His Peculiarities, Inevitably Tear Him Into Parts, And, Of Course, Patch Him Very Clumsily Together Again. What Wonder, Then, Should We Be Frightened By The Aspect Of A Monster.

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.

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

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.

The Best Of Us Being Unfit To Die, What An Unexpressible Absurdity To Put The Worst To Death.

Earth Has One Angel Less And Heaven One More, Since Yesterday.

See! Those Fiendish Lineaments Graven On The Darkness, The Writhed Lip Of Scorn, The Mockery Of That Living Eye, The Pointed Finger, Touching The Sore Place In Your Heart! Do You Remember Any Act Of Enormous Folly, At Which You Would Blush, Even In The Remotest Cavern Of The Earth? Then Recognize Your Shame.

Death Was Too Definite An Object To Be Wished For Or Avoided.

But, All This While, I Was Giving Myself Very Unnecessary Alarm. Providence Had Mediated Better Things For Me Than I Could Possibly Imagine For Myself.

It Is A Curious Subject Of Observation And Inquiry, Whether Hatred And Love Be Not The Same Thing At Bottom.

What Is The Voice Of Song When The World Lacks The Ear Of Taste?

The Only Sensible Ends Of Literature Are, First, The Pleasurable Toil Of Writing; Second, The Gratification Of One's Family And Friends; And Lastly, The Solid Cash.

Family And Friends

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.

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.

Man's Own Youth Is The World's Youth; At Least He Feels As If It Were, And Imagines That The Earth's Granite Substance Is Something Not Yet Hardened, And Which He Can Mould Into Whatever Shape He Likes.

Genius, Indeed, Melts Many Ages Into One, And Thus Effects Something Permanent, Yet Still With A Similarity Of Office To That Of The More Ephemeral Writer. A Work Of Genius Is But The Newspaper Of A Century, Or Perchance Of A Hundred Centuries.

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.

Nervous And Excitable Persons Need To Talk A Great Deal, By Way Of Letting Off Their Steam.

A Screen... The Scenery And The Figures Of Life Were Perfectly Represented, But With That Bewitching, Yet Indescribably Difference, Which Always Makes A Picture, An Image, Or A Shadow, So Much More Attractive Than The Original.

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

Such Has Often Been My Apathy, When Objects Long Sought, And Earnestly Desired, Were Placed Within My Reach.

Though We Speak Nonsense, God Will Pick Out The Meaning Of It.

It Is A Curious Subject Of Observation And Inquiry, Whether Hatred And Love Be Not The Same Thing At Bottom. Each, In Its Utmost Development, Supposes A High Degree Of Intimacy And Heart-knowledge; Each Renders One Individual Dependent For The Food Of His Affections And Spiritual Life Upon Another; Each Leaves The Passionate Lover, Or The No Less Passionate Hater, Forlorn And Desolate By The Withdrawal Of His Object.

Most People Are So Constituted That They Can Only Be Virtuous In A Certain Routine; An Irregular Course Of Life Demoralizes Them.

Honesty And Wisdom Are Such A Delightful Pastime, At Another Person's Expense!

It Contributes Greatly Towards A Man's Moral And Intellectual Health, To Be Brought Into Habits Of Companionship With Individuals Unlike Himself, Who Care Little For His Pursuits, And Whose Sphere And Abilities He Must Go Out Of Himself To Appreciate.

A Long Time Ago, In A Town With Which I Used To Be Familiarly Acquainted, There Dwelt An Elderly Person Of Grim Aspect, Known By The Name And Title Of Doctor Grimshawe, Whose Household Consisted Of A Remarkably Pretty And Vivacious Boy, And A Perfect Rosebud Of A Girl, Two Or Three Years Younger Than He, And An Old Maid Of All Work, Of Strangely Mixed Breed, Crusty In Temper And Wonderfully Sluttish In Attire.

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.

This Greatest Mortal Consolation, Which We Derive From The Transitoriness Of All Things-from The Right Of Saying, In Every Conjuncture, "this, Too, Will Pass Away.

To-morrow Would Bring Its Own Trial With It; So Would The Next Day, And So Would The Next; Each Its Own Trial, And Yet The Very Same That Was Now So Unutterably Grievous To Be Borne. The Days Of The Far-off Future Would Toil Onward, Still With The Same Burden For Her To Take Up, And Bear Along With Her, But Never To Fling Down; For The Accumulating Days, And Added Years, Would Pile Up Their Misery Upon The Heap Of Shame.

It Is A Good Lesson - Though It May Often Be A Hard One - For A Man... To Step Aside Out Of The Narrow Circle In Which His Claims Are Recognized, And To Find How Utterly Devoid Of Significance, Beyond That Circle, Is All That He Achieves, And All He Aims At.

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.

It Is Not Strange That That Early Love Of The Heart Should Come Back, As It So Often Does When The Dim Eye Is Brightening With Its Last Light. It Is Not Strange That The Freshest Fountains The Heart Has Ever Known In Its Wastes Should Bubble Up Anew When The Lifeblood Is Growing Stagnant. It Is Not Strange That A Bright Memory Should Come To A Dying Old Man, As The Sunshine Breaks Across The Hills At The Close Of A Stormy Day; Nor That In The Light Of That Ray, The Very Clouds That Made The Day Dark Should Grow Gloriously Beautiful.

Those With Whom We Can Apparently Become Well Acquainted In A Few Moments Are Generally The Most Difficult To Rightly Know And To Understand.

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.

The Aspect Of The Venerable Mansion Has Always Affected Me Like A Human Countenance, Bearing The Traces Not Merely Of Outward Storm And Sunshine, But Expressive Also, Of The Long Lapse Of Mortal Life, And Accompanying Vicissitudes That Have Passed Within. Were These To Be Worthily Recounted, They Would Form A Narrative Of No Small Interest And Instruction, And Possessing, Moreover, A Certain Remarkable Unity, Which Might Almost Seem The Result Of Artistic Arrangement.

Nobody Will Use Other People's Experience, Nor Have Any Of His Own Till It Is Too Late To Use It.

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?

The Evening Before My Departure For Blithedale, I Was Returning To My Bachelor-apartments, After Attending The Wonderful Exhibition Of The Veiled Lady, When An Elderly-man Of Rather Shabby Appearance Met Me In An Obscure Part Of The Street.

Writing Can Come Naturally To Some. Still, When It Comes To Good Writing, This Is True: Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

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.

The Thing You Set Your Mind On Is The Thing You Ultimately Become.

Law Of Attraction

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.

Let Us Acknowledge It Wiser, If Not More Sagacious To Follow Out One's Day-dream To Its Natural Consummation, Although If The Vision Has Been Worth The Having, It Is Certain Never To Be Consummated Otherwise Than By A Failure.

As A General Rule, Providence Seldom Vouchsafes To Mortals Any More Than Just That Degree Of Encouragement Which Suffices To Keep Them At A Reasonably Full Exertion Of Their Powers.

As The Architecture Of A Country Always Follows The Earliest Structures, American Architecture Should Be A Refinement Of The Log-house. The Egyptian Is So Of The Cavern And The Mound; The Chinese, Of The Tent; The Gothic, Of Overarching Trees; The Greek, Of A Cabin.

Mankind Are Earthen Jugs With Spirits In Them.

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.

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

I Cannot Endure To Waste Anything As Precious As Autumn Sunshine By Staying In The House. So I Spend Almost All The Daylight Hours In The Open Air.

There Is Something Truer And More Real, Than What We Can See With The Eyes, And Touch With The Finger.

I Heard A Neigh. Oh, Such A Brisk And Melodious Neigh It Was. My Very Heart Leapt With The Sound.

Every Young Sculptor Seems To Think That He Must Give The World Some Specimen Of Indecorous Womanhood, And Call It Eve, Venus, A Nymph, Or Any Name That May Apologize For A Lack Of Decent Clothing.

Never Was There A Dingier, Uglier, Less Picturesque City Than London ... It Is Really Wonderful That So Much Brick And Stone, For Centuries Together, Should Have Been Built Up With So Poor A Result.

If The Truth Were To Be Known, Everyone Would Be Wearing A Scarlet Letter Of One Form Or Another.

When The Artist Rises High Enough To Achieve The Beautiful, The Symbol By Which He Makes It Perceptible To Mortal Senses Becomes Of Little Value In His Eyes, While His Spirit Possesses Itself In The Enjoyment Of The Reality.

Every Crime Destroys More Edens Than Our Own

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.

It [the Scarlet Letter] Had The Effect Of A Spell, Taking Her Out Of The Ordinary Relations With Humanity, And Enclosing Her In A Sphere By Herself.

I Have Laughed, In Bitterness And Agony Of Heart, At The Contrast Between What I Seem And What I Am!

By The Sympathy Of Your Human Hearts For Sin Ye Shall Scent Out All The Places Whether In Church, Bedchamber, Street, Field, Or Forest Where Crime Has Been Committed, And Shall Exult To Behold The Whole Earth One Stain Of Guilt, One Mighty Blood Spot.

This Dull River Has A Deep Religion Of Its Own; So, Let Us Trust, Has The Dullest Human Soul, Though, Perhaps, Unconsciously.

We Go All Wrong By Too Strenuous A Resolution To Go Right.

Yesterday I Visited The British Museum; An Exceedingly Tiresome Affair. It Quite Crushes A Person To See So Much At Once; And I Wandered From Hall To Hall With A Weary And Heavy Heart. The Present Is Burdened Too Much With The Past.

The World, That Grey-bearded And Wrinkled Profligate, Decrepit, Without Being Venerable.

A Singular Fact, That, When Man Is A Brute, He Is The Most Sensual And Loathsome Of All Brutes.

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.

I Wish I Had The Gift Of Making Rhymes, For Methinks There Is Poetry In My Head And Heart Since I Have Been In Love With You.

Just As There Comes A Warm Sunbeam Into Every Cottage Window, So Comes A Lovebeam Of God's Care And Pity For Every Separate Need.

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly.

Like A Butterfly

If Truth Were Everywhere To Be Shown, A Scarlet Letter Would Blaze Forth On Many A Bosom.

A Hero Cannot Be A Hero Unless In A Heroic World.

Nobody Has Any Conscience About Adding To The Improbabilities Of A Marvelous Tale.

As Far As My Experience Goes, Men Of Genius Are Fairly Gifted With The Social Qualities; And In This Age, There Appears To Be A Fellow-feeling Among Them, Which Had Not Heretofore Been Developed. As Men, They Ask Nothing Better Than To Be On Equal Terms With Their Fellow-men; And As Authors, They Have Thrown Aside Their Proverbial Jealousy, And Acknowledge A Generous Brotherhood.

Sleeping Or Waking, We Hear Not The Airy Footsteps Of The Strange Things That Almost Happen.

...and We Have So Far Improved Upon The Custom Of Adam And Eve, That We Generally Furnish Forth Our Feasts With A Portion Of Some Delicate Calf Or Lamb, Whose Unspotted Innocence Entitles Them To The Happiness Of Becoming Our Sustenance.

I Find Nothing So Singular To Life As That Everything Appears To Lose Its Substance The Instant One Actually Grapples With It.

If A Man, Sitting All Alone, Cannot Dream Strange Things, And Make Them Look Like Truth, He Need Never Try To Write Romances.

And There I Sat, Long Long Ago, Waiting For The World To Know Me.

Families Are Always Rising And Falling In America.

It Is Remarkable, That Persons Who Speculate The Most Boldly Often Conform With The Most Perfect Quietude To The External Regulations Of Society. The Thoughts Alone Suffice Them, Without Investing Itself In The Flesh And Blood Of Action.

But, Irreverently Consorting With These Grave, Reputable, And Pious People, These Elders Of The Church, These Chaste Dames And Dewy Virgins, There Were Men Of Dissolute Lives And Women Of Spotted Fame, Wretches Given Over To All Mean And Filthy Vice, And Suspected Even Of Horrid Crimes. It Was Strange To See That The Good Shrank Not From The Wicked, Nor Were The Sinners Abashed By The Saints.

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.

Thus We See, Too, In The World That Some Persons Assimilate Only What Is Ugly And Evil From The Same Moral Circumstances Which Supply Good And Beautiful Results--the Fragrance Of Celestial Flowers--to The Daily Life Of Others.

Let Men Tremble To Win The Hand Of Woman, Unless They Win Along With It The Utmost Passion Of Her Heart! Else It May Be Their Miserable Fortune, When Some Mightier Touch Than Their Own May Have Awakened All Her Sensibilities, To Be Reproached Even For The Calm Content, The Marble Image Of Happiness, Which They Will Have Imposed Upon Her As The Warm Reality.

What A Happy And Holy Fashion It Is That Those Who Love One Another Should Rest On The Same Pillow.

Sunlight Is Painting.

Would All, Who Cherish Such Wild Wishes, But Look Around Them, They Would Oftenest Find Their Sphere Of Duty, Of Prosperity, And Happiness, Within Those Precincts, And In That Station Where Providence Itself Has Cast Their Lot. Happy They Who Read The Riddle Without A Weary World-search, Or A Lifetime Spent In Vain!

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.

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.

But She Named The Infant "pearl," As Being Of Great Price-purchased With All She Had-her Mother's Only Treasure!

All Merely Graceful Attributes Are Usually The Most Evanescent.

How Is It Possible To Sayan Unkind Or Irreverential Word Of Rome? The City Of All Time, And Of All The World!

A Woman's Chastity Consists, Like An Onion, Of A Series Of Coats. You May Strip Off The Outer Ones Without Doing Much Mischief, Perhaps None At All ; But You Keep Taking Off One After Another, In Expectation Of Coming To The Inner Nucleus, Including The Whole Value Of The Matter. It Proves, However, That There Is No Such Nucleus, And That Chastity Is Diffused Through The Whole Series Of Coats, Is Lessened With The Removal Of Each, And Vanishes With The Final One Which You Supposed Would Introduce You To The Hidden Pearl.

All Brave Men Love; For He Only Is Brave Who Has Affections To Fight For, Whether In The Daily Battle Of Life, Or In Physical Contests.

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!

The Christian Faith Is A Grand Cathedral With Divinely Pictured Windows.

A Human Spirit May Find No Insufficiency Of Food Fit For It, Even In The Custom House.

The Whole Forest Was Peopled With Frightful Sounds-the Creaking Of The Trees, The Howling Of Wild Beasts, And The Yell Of Indians; While Sometimes The Wind Tolled Like A Distant Church Bell, And Sometimes Gave A Broad Roar Around The Traveler, As If All Nature Were Laughing Him To Scorn. But He Was Himself The Chief Horror Of The Scene, And Shrank Not From Its Other Horrors.

It Was A Day In Early Spring; And As That Sweet, Genial Time Of Year And Atmosphere Calls Out Tender Greenness From The Ground,--beautiful Flowers, Or Leaves That Look Beautiful Because So Long Unseen Under The Snow And Decay,--so The Pleasant Air And Warmth Had Called Out Three Young People, Who Sat On A Sunny Hill-side Enjoying The Warm Day And One Another.

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.

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.

Is It A Fact-or Have I Dreamt It-that, By Means Of Electricity, The World Of Matter Has Become A Great Nerve, Vibrating Thousands Of Miles In A Breathless Point Of Time?

What We Need For Our Happiness Is Often Close At Hand, If We Knew But How To Seek For It.

Shall We Never Never Get Rid Of This Past? ... It Lies Upon The Present Like A Giant's Dead Body.

My Heart Was A Habitation Large Enough For Many Guests, But Lonely And Chill, And Without A Household Fire. I Longed To Kindle One! It Seemed Not So Wild A Dream.

The World Surely Has Not Another Place Like Oxford; It Is A Despair To See Such A Place And Ever To Leave It, For It Would Take A Lifetime And More Than One To Comprehend And Enjoy It Satisfactorily.

But There Is A Fatality, A Feeling So Irresistible And Inevitable That It Has The Force Of Doom, Which Almost Invariably Compels Human Beings To Linger Around And Haunt, Ghost-like, The Spot Where Some Great And Marked Event Has Given The Colour To Their Lifetime; And, Still The More Irresistibly, The Darker The Tinge That Saddens It.

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.

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.

Inspirational Love

Cupid In These Latter Times Has Probably Laid Aside His Bow And Arrow, And Uses Fire-arms -- A Pistol -- Perhaps A Revolver.

If Mankind Were All Intellect, They Would Be Continually Changing, So That One Age Would Be Entirely Unlike Another. The Great Conservative Is The Heart, Which Remains The Same In All Ages; So That Commonplaces Of A Thousand Years' Standing Are As Effective As Ever.

Unquestionably We Do Stand By Our National Flag As Stoutly As Any People In The World; And I Myself Have Felt The Heart-throb At Sight Of It, As Sensibly As Other Men.

Religion And Art Spring From The Same Root And Are Close Kin. Economics And Art Are Strangers.

Language,-human Language,-after All Is But Little Better Than The Croak And Cackle Of Fowls, And Other Utterances Of Brute Nature,-sometimes Not So Adequate.

Trusting No Man As His Friend, He Could Not Recognize His Enemy When The Latter Actually Appeared.

The Washing Of Dishes Does Seem To Me The Most Absurd And Unsatisfactory Business That I Ever Undertook. If, When Once Washed, They Would Remain Clean For Ever And Ever (which They Ought In All Reason To Do, Considering How Much Trouble It Is), There Would Be Less Occasion To Grumble; But No Sooner Is It Done, Than It Requires To Be Done Again. On The Whole, I Have Come To The Resolution Not To Use More Than One Dish At Each Meal.

When Romances Do Really Teach Anything, Or Produce Any Effective Operation, It Is Usually Through A Far More Subtle Process Than The Ostensible One. The Author Has Considered It Hardly Worth His While, Therefore, Relentlessly To Impale The Story With Its Moral As With An Iron Rod-or, Rather, As By Sticking A Pin Through A Butterfly-thus At Once Depriving It Of Life, And Causing It To Stiffen In An Ungainly And Unnatural Attitude.

Salt Is White And Pure - There Is Something Holy In Salt.

New England Is Quite As Large A Lump Of Earth As My Heart Can Really Take In.

The Heart Of True Womanhood Knows Where Its Own Sphere Is, And Never Seeks To Stray Beyond It!

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves At The Moment Of Waking From A Troubled Dream; It May Be So The Moment After Death.

America Is Now Wholly Given Over To A D--d Mob Of Scribbling Women, And I Should Have No Chance Of Success While The Public Taste Is Occupied With Their Trash - And Should Be Ashamed Of Myself If I Did Succeed. What Is The Mystery Of These Innumerable Editions Of The Lamplighter, And Other Books Neither Better Nor Worse? - Worse They Could Not Be, And Better They Need Not Be, When They Sell By 100,000.

Last Night, There Came A Frost, Which Has Done Great Damage To My Garden.... It Is Sad That Nature Will Play Such Tricks On Us Poor Mortals, Inviting Us With Sunny Smiles To Confide In Her, And Then, When We Are Entirely Within Her Power, Striking Us To The Heart.

This World Owes All Its Forward Impulses To People Ill At Ease.

Labor Is The Curse Of The World, And Nobody Can Meddle With It Without Becoming Proportionately Brutalized.

Nobody, I Think, Ought To Read Poetry, Or Look At Pictures Or Statues, Who Cannot Find A Great Deal More In Them Than The Poet Or Artist Has Actually Expressed. Their Highest Merit Is Suggestiveness.

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly - The More You Chase, The More Subtle, But If You Stop Moving And Quietly Wait For It To Land On You.

It Is To The Credit Of Human Nature That, Except Where Its Selfishness Is Brought Into Play, It Loves More Readily Than It Hates.

Selfishness Is One Of The Qualities Apt To Inspire Love.

Some Illusions...are The Shadows Of Great Truths.

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

You Can Get Assent To Almost Any Proposition So Long As You Are Not Going To Do Anything About It.

Why Are Poets So Apt To Choose Their Mates, Not For Any Similarity Of Poetic Endowment, But For Qualities Which Might Make The Happiness Of The Rudest Handicraftsman As Well As That Of The Ideal Craftsman Of The Spirit? Because, Probably, At His Highest Elevation, The Poet Needs No Human Intercourse; But He Finds It Dreary To Descend, And Be A Stranger.

Would Time But Await The Close Of Our Favorite Follies, We Should All Be Young Men, All Of Us, And Until Doom's Day.

Masculine Observers, If The Birth-mark Did Not Heighten Their Admiration, Contented Themselves With Wishing It Away, That The World Might Possess One Living Specimen Of Ideal Loveliness, Without The Semblance Of A Flaw.

Time Flies Over Us, But Leaves Its Shadow Behind.

Keep The Imagination Sane--that Is One Of The Truest Conditions Of Communion With Heaven.

Women Are Safer In Perilous Situations And Emergencies Than Men, And Might Be Still More So If They Trusted Themselves More Confidingly To The Chivalry Of Manhood.

London Is Like The Grave In One Respect -- Any Man Can Make Himself At Home There; And Whenever A Man Finds Himself Homeless Elsewhere, He Had Better Either Die Or Go To London.

It [catholicism] Supplies A Multitude Of External Forms In Which The Spiritual May Be Clothed And Manifested.

I Have Come To See The Nonsense Of Attempting To Describe Fine Scenery. There Is No Such Possibility. If Scenery Could Be Adequately Reproduced In Words, There Would Have Been No Need Of God's Making It In Reality.

Some Attribute Had Departed From Her, The Permanence Of Which Had Been Essential To Keep Her A Woman. Such Is Frequently The Fate, And Such The Stern Development, Of The Feminine Character And Person, When The Woman Has Encountered, And Lived Through, An Experience Of Peculiar Severity. If She Be All Tenderness, She Will Die. If She Survive, The Tenderness Will Either Be Crushed Out Of Her, Or—and The Outward Semblance Is The Same—crushed So Deeply Into Her Heart That It Can Never Show Itself More.

Let Men Tremble To Win The Hand Of Woman, Unless They Win Along With It The Utmost Passion Of Her Heart!

I Used To Visit And Revisit It A Dozen Times A Day, And Stand In Deep Contemplation Over My Vegetable Progeny With A Love That Nobody Could Share Or Conceive Of Who Had Never Taken Part In The Process Of Creation. It Was One Of The Most Bewitching Sights In The World To Observe A Hill Of Beans Thrusting Aside The Soil, Or A Rose Of Early Peas Just Peeping Forth Sufficiently To Trace A Line Of Delicate Green.

The Sorrow That Lay Cold In Her Mother's Heart... Converted It Into A Tomb.

A Woman's Chastity Consists, Like An Onion, Of A Series Of Coats.

Life, Within Doors, Has Few Pleasanter Prospects Than A Neatly-arranged And Well-provisioned Breakfast-table. We Come To It Freshly, In The Dewy Youth Of The Day, And When Our Spiritual And Sensual Elements Are In Better Accord Than At A Later Period; So That The Material Delights Of The Morning Meal Are Capable Of Being Fully Enjoyed, Without Any Very Grievous Reproaches, Whether Gastric Or Conscientious, For Yielding Even A Trifle Overmuch To The Animal Department Of Our Nature.

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.

There Is No Greater Bugbear Than A Strong Willed Relative In The Circle Of His Own Connections.

Be True! Be True! Be True! Show Freely To The World, If Not Your Worst, Yet Some Trait Whereby The Worst May Be Inferred!

If Cities Were Built By The Sound Of Music, Then Some Edifices Would Appear To Be Constructed By Grave, Solemn Tones,--others To Have Danced Forth To Light Fantastic Airs.

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

A Man--poet, Prophet, Or Whatever Be May Be--readily Persuades Himself Of His Right To All The Worship That Is Voluntarily Tendered.

The World Owes All Its Onward Impulses To Men Ill At Ease. The Happy Man Inevitably Confines Himself Within Ancient Limits.

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.

The Greatest Obstacle To Being Heroic Is The Doubt Whether One May Not Be Going To Prove One's Self A Fool; The Truest Heroism Is To Resist The Doubt; And The Profoundest Wisdom, To Know When It Ought To Be Resisted, And When It Be Obeyed.

There Is An Alchemy Of Quiet Malice By Which Women Can Concoct A Subtle Poison From Ordinary Trifles.

The Founders Of A New Colony, Whatever Utopia Of Human Virtue And Happiness They Might Originally Project, Have Invariably Recognized It Among Their Earliest Practical Necessities To Allot A Portion Of The Virgin Soil As A Cemetery, And Another Portion As The Site Of A Prison.

Oh, For The Years I Have Not Lived, But Only Dreamed Of Living.

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

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.

No, My Little Pearl! Thou Must Gather Thine Own Sunshine. I Have None To Give Thee.

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William Lloyd Garrison

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