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We Must Not Think Too Unkindly Even Of The East Wind. It Is Not, Perhaps, A Wind To Be Loved, Even In Its Benignest Moods; But There Are Seasons When I Delight To Feel Its Breath Upon My Cheek, Though It Be Never Advisable To Throw Open My Bosom And Take It Into My Heart, As I Would Its Gentle Sisters Of The South And West.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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We Must Not Think

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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We Must Not Think Too Unkindly Even Of The East Wind. It Is Not, Perhaps, A Wind To Be Loved, Even In Its Benignest Moods; But There Are Seasons When I Delight To Feel Its Breath Upon My Cheek, Though It Be Never Advisable To Throw Open My Bosom And Take It Into My Heart, As I Would Its Gentle Sisters Of The South And West.

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We Do Ourselves Wrong, And Too Meanly Estimate The Holiness Above Us, When We Deem That Any Act Or Enjoyment Good In Itself, Is Not Good To Do Religiously.

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

What We Call Real Estate - The Solid Ground To Build A House On - Is The Broad Foundation On Which Nearly All The Guilt Of This World Rests.

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

It Will Startle You To See What Slaves We Are To By-gone Times-to Death, If We Give The Matter The Right Word! ... We Read In Dead Men's Books! We Laugh At Dead Men's Jokes, And Cry At Dead Men's Pathos! . . . Whatever We Seek To Do, Of Our Own Free Motion, A Dead Man's Icy Hand Obstructs Us!

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

We Must Not Always Talk In The Market-place Of What Happens To Us In The Forest.

A Writer Of Story Books! What Kind Of Business In Life-what Mode Of Glorifying God, Or Being Serviceable To Mankind In His Day And Generation-may That Be? Why, The Degenerate Fellow Might As Well Have Been A Fiddler!

We Are But Shadows: We Are, Not Endowed With Real Life, And All That Seems Most Real About Us Is But The Thinnest Substance Of A Dream,--till The Heart Be Touched. That Touch Creates Us--then We Begin To Be--thereby We Are Beings Of Reality And Inheritors Of Eternity.

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.

...chillingworth Was A Striking Evidence Of Man's Faculty Of Transforming Himself Into A Devil, If He Will Only, For A Reasonable Space Of Time, Undertake A Devil's Office.

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.

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

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

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.

Depending Upon One Another's Hearts, Ye Had Still Hoped That Virtue Were Not All A Dream. Now Are Ye Undeceived. Evil Is The Nature Of Mankind.

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

In This Republican Country, Amid The Fluctuating Waves Of Our Social Life, Somebody Is Always At The Drowning-point.

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.

But This Had Been A Sin Of Passion, Not Of Principle, Nor Even Purpose.

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.

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.

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.

Who Can Tell Where Happiness May Come, Or Where, Though An Expected Guest, It May Never Show Its Face?

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

It Is A Little Remarkable, That - Though Disinclined To Talk Overmuch Of Myself And My Affairs At The Fireside, And To My Personal Friends - An Autobiographical Impulse Should Twice In My Life Have Taken Possession Of Me, In Addressing The Public.

An Unhappy Gentleman, Resolving To Wed Nothing Short Of Perfection, Keeps His Heart And Hand Till Both Get So Old And Withered That No Tolerable Woman Will Accept Them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

She Poured Out The Liquid Music Of Her Voice To Quench The Thirst Of His Spirit.

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.

...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.

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.

Echo Is The Voice Of A Reflection In A Mirror.

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.

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.

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.

Now Are Ye Undeceived. Evil Is The Nature Of Mankind. Evil Must Be Your Only Happiness. Welcome Again, My Children, To The Communion Of Your Race.

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.

Life, Within Doors, Has Few Pleasanter Prospects Than A Neatly-arranged And Well-provisioned Breakfast-table.

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.

Time Flies Over Us, But Leaves Its Shadow Behind.

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.

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

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

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.

Halfway Down A By-street Of One Of Our New England Towns Stands A Rusty Wooden House, With Seven Acutely Peaked Gables, Facing Towards Various Points Of The Compass, And A Huge, Clustered Chimney In The Midst. The Street Is Pyncheon Street; The House Is The Old Pyncheon House; And An Elm-tree, Of Wide Circumference, Rooted Before The Door, Is Familiar To Every Town-born Child By The Title Of The Pyncheon Elm.

Wherever There Is A Heart And An Intellect, The Diseases Of The Physical Frame Are Tinged With The Peculiarities Of These.

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.

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.

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

Death Is So Genuine A Fact That It Excludes Falsehoods, Or Betrays Its Emptiness; It Is A Touchstone That Proves The Gold, And Dishonors The Baser Metal.

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

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

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.

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

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

No Summer Ever Came Back, And No Two Summers Ever Were Alike. Times Change, And People Change; And If Our Hearts Do Not Change As Readily, So Much The Worse For Us.

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.

The Divine Chemistry Works In The Subsoil.

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.

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

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

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.

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.

She Had Not Known The Weight Until She Felt The Freedom.

We Must Not Think Too Unkindly Even Of The East Wind. It Is Not, Perhaps, A Wind To Be Loved, Even In Its Benignest Moods; But There Are Seasons When I Delight To Feel Its Breath Upon My Cheek, Though It Be Never Advisable To Throw Open My Bosom And Take It Into My Heart, As I Would Its Gentle Sisters Of The South And West.

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.

What A Sweet Reverence Is That When A Young Man Deems His Mistress A Little More Than Mortal And Almost Chides Himself For Longing To Bring Her Close To His Heart.

She Wanted—what Some People Want Throughout Life—a Grief That Should Deeply Touch Her, And Thus Humanize And Make Her Capable Of Sympathy.

Caresses, Expressions Of One Sort Or Another, Are Necessary To The Life Of The Affections As Leaves Are To The Life Of A Tree. If They Are Wholly Restrained, Love Will Die At The Roots.

It Is Very Singular How The Fact Of A Man's Death Often Seems To Give People A Truer Idea Of His Character, Whether For Good Or Evil, Than They Have Ever Possessed While He Was Living And Acting Among Them.

In The Depths Of Every Heart, There Is A Tomb And A Dungeon, Though The Lights, The Music, And Revelry Above May Cause Us To Forget Their Existence, And The Buried Ones, Or Prisoners Whom They Hide. But Sometimes, And Oftenest At Midnight, Those Dark Receptacles Are Flung Wide Open. In An Hour Like This, When The Mind Has A Passive Sensibility, But No Active Strength; When The Imagination Is A Mirror, Imparting Vividness To All Ideas, Without The Power Of Selecting Or Controlling Them; Then Pray That Your Grieves May Slumber, And The Brotherhood Of Remorse Not Break Their Chain.

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

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.

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.

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.

In Our Nature, However, There Is A Provision, Alike Marvelous And Merciful, That The Sufferer Should Never Know The Intensity Of What He Endures By Its Present Torture, But Chiefly By The Pang That Rankles After It.

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.

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

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.

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

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

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

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

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

I Wonder That We Americans Love Our Country At All, It Having No Limits And No Oneness; And When You Try To Make It A Matter Of The Heart, Everything Falls Away Except One's Native State; -neither Can You Seize Hold Of That, Unless You Tear It Out Of The Union, Bleeding And Quivering.

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.

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.

If Human Love Hath Power To Penetrate The Veil--and Hath It Not?--then There Are Yet Living Here A Few Who Have The Blessedness Of Knowing That An Angel Loves Them.

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

Love, Whether Newly Born, Or Aroused From A Deathlike Slumber, Must Always Create Sunshine, Filling The Heart So Full Of Radiance, This It Overflows Upon The Outward World.

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.

We Dream In Our Waking Moments, And Walk In Our Sleep.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

When Individuals Approach One Another With Deep Purposes On Both Sides They Seldom Come At Once To The Matter Which They Have Most At Heart. They Dread The Electric Shock Of A Too Sudden Contact With It.

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

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.

As The Moral Gloom Of The World Overpowers All Systematic Gaiety, Even So Was Their Home Of Wild Mirth Made Desolate Amid The Sad Forest.

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

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

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

One Picture In Ten Thousand, Perhaps, Ought To Live In The Applause Of Mankind, From Generation To Generation Until The Colors Fade And Blacken Out Of Sight Or The Canvas Rot Entirely Away.

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

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.

The Greatest Possible Mint Of Style Is To Make The Words Absolutely Disappear Into The Thought.

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.

If We Would Know What Heaven Is Before We Come Thither, Let Us Retire Into The Depths Of Our Own Spirits, And We Shall Find It There Among Holy Thoughts And Feelings.

It Is My Opinion That A Man's Soul May Be Buried And Perish Under A Dung-heap, Or In A Furrow Field, Just As Well As Under A Pile Of Money.

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

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

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

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!

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.

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

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.

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

It Is Because The Spirit Is Inestimable, That The Lifeless Body Is So Little Valued.

I Find Myself At The Extremity Of A Long Beach. How Gladly Does The Spirit Leap Forth, And Suddenly Enlarge Its Sense Of Being To The Full Extent Of The Broad, Blue, Sunny Deep! A Greeting And A Homage To The Sea! I Descend Over Its Margin, And Dip My Hand Into The Wave That Meets Me, And Bathe My Brow. That Far-resounding Roar Is The Ocean’s Voice Of Welcome. His Salt Breath Brings A Blessing Along With It.

At No Time Are People So Sedulously Careful To Keep Their Trifling Appointments, Attend To Their Ordinary Occupations, And Thus Put A Commonplace Aspect On Life, As When Conscious Of Some Secret That If Suspected Would Make Them Look Monstrous In The General Eye.

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

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.

Men Of Cold Passions Have Quick Eyes.

Sunlight Is Painting.

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.

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!

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

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.

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?

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.

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

She Had Wandered, Without Rule Or Guidance, Into A Moral Wilderness... Her Intellect And Heart Had Their Home, As It Were, In Desert Places, Where She Roamed As Freely As The Wild Indian In His Woods... The Scarlet Letter Was Her Passport Into Regions Where Other Women Dared Not Tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These Had Been Her Teachers—stern And Wild Ones—and They Had Made Her Strong, But Taught Her Much Amiss.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Sometimes Fancy," Said Hilda, On Whose Susceptibility The Scene Always Made A Strong Impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will Crowd Everything Else Out Of My Heart.

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)

'what Is The Unpardonable Sin' Asked The Lime-burner 'it Is A Sin That Grew Within My Own Breast', Replied Ethan Brand 'the Sin Of An Intellect That Triumphed Over The Sense Of Brotherhood With Man And Reverence For God'.

Some Maladies Are Rich And Precious And Only To Be Acquired By The Right Of Inheritance Or Purchased With Gold.

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.

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

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.

Families Are Always Rising And Falling In America.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

What, In The Name Of Common-sense, Had I To Do With Any Better Society Than I Had Always Lived In?

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

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.

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly.

Like A Butterfly

Or-but This More Rarely Happened-she Would Be Convulsed With A Rage Of Grief, And Sob Out Her Love For Her Mother, In Broken Words, And Seem Intent On Proving That She Had A Heart, By Breaking It.

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.

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 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.

She Could No Longer Borrow From The Future To Ease Her Present Grief.

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

Our Most Intimate Friend Is Not He To Whom We Show The Worst, But The Best Of Our Nature.

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

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.

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

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

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

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. Nevertheless, Like The Greater Part Of Our Misfortunes, Even So Serious A Contingency Brings Its Remedy And Consolation With It, If The Sufferer Will But Make The Best, Rather Than The Worst, Of The Accident Which Has Befallen Him.

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

All Merely Graceful Attributes Are Usually The Most Evanescent.

The Present Is Burthened Too Much With The Past.

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

Amid The Seeming Confusion Of Our Mysterious World , Individuals Are So Nicely Adjusted To A System, And Systems To One Another And To A Whole, That, By Stepping Aside For A Moment, A Man Exposes Himself To A Fearful Risk Of Losing His Place Forever. (wakefield)

In All Her Intercourse With Society, However, There Was Nothing That Made Her Feel As If She Belonged To It... She Stood Apart From Mortal Interests, Yet Close Beside Them, Like A Ghost That Revisits The Familiar Fireside, And Can No Longer Make Itself Seen Or Felt.

The Calmer Thought Is Not Always The Right Thought, Just As The Distant View Is Not Always The Truest View

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

It Loves More Readily Than It Hates.

Hatred And Anger

Pleasant Is A Rainy Winter's Day, Within Doors! The Best Study For Such A Day, Or The Best Amusement,—call It Which You Will,—is A Book Of Travels, Describing Scenes The Most Unlike That Sombre One

Life Figures Itself To Me As A Festal Or Funereal Procession.

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

No Author, Without A Trial, Can Conceive Of The Difficulty Of Writing A Romance About A Country Where There Is No Shadow, No Antiquity, No Mystery, No Picturesque And Gloomy Wrong, Nor Anything But A Commonplace Prosperity, In Broad And Simple Daylight, As Is Happily The Case With My Dear Native Land.

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.

Mankind Are Earthen Jugs With Spirits In Them.

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