80 Best Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes From 'The Scarlet Letter' Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an early transcendentalist wrote novels based on religious and moralistic sentiments.

The author had a troubled past and family life, he had to use pseudo names in order to remain unscathed from the talks of society. Hawthorne spent a considerable time working for the government body, thus his books mirror his life as an American diplomat.

'The Scarlet Letter' was written right after Hawthorne lost his job as a Customs House Surveyor in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. The book instantly became the best seller and is accorded as his best work, even in present times.

This article is dedicated to all the best quotes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, you will find Hester Prynne quotes, Nathaniel Hawthorne religion quotes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne book quotes.

If you like what you are reading please also go through 'The Scarlet Letter' quotes and Herman Melville quotes.

‍

Nathaniel Hawthorne is an exponent of Dark Romance who rose to prominence in the 19th century. Here is a list of quotes from his best works that include; 'The Scarlet Letter', 'The House Of The Seven Gables', 'The Marble Faun', 'The Romance Of Monte Beni' and many more.

1. "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Fanshawe'.

2. "Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

3. "Easy reading is damn hard writing."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

4. "To do nothing is the way to be nothing."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

5. "I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The American Notebooks'.

6. "Death should take me while I am in the mood."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Blithedale Romance'.

7. "Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

8. "Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

9. "Shall we never never get rid of this Past? It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

10. "'Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!' whispered her mother. 'We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.'"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

11. "And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

12. "Providence had mediated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

13. "She has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

14. "It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. "

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

15. "Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

16. "Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

17. "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."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

18. "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."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

19. "Few secrets can escape an investigator who has opportunity and license to undertake such a quest and skill to follow it up."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

20. "Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Young Goodman Brown'.

There is nothing more apt than Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes, his cutthroat reality novels presented characters that we will relate to in our day-to-day lives. Enjoy some of our selected quotes from this short story writer, you may also find them useful and inspiring.

21. "Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

22. "Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

23. "The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne.

24. "Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! "

-Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

25. "Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent."

-Hawthorne.

26. "When he is cheerful - when the sun shines into his mind - then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

27. "Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Rappaccini's Daughter'.

28. "His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Roger Malvin's Burial'.

29. "'A grave and dark-clad company,' quoth Goodman Brown."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Young Goodman Brown'.

30. "You are partly crazy, and partly imbecile; a ruin, a failure, as almost everybody is."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

31. "This shall be the last of my benevolent follies, and I will never be kind to anybody again as long as I live."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

32. "In cases of distasteful occupation, the second day is generally worse than the first."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

33. "It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to the worldliest of us."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

34. "Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Ethan Brand'.

35. "The secrets that may be buried with a human heart."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

36. "Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

37. "Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

38. "The bookworm of great libraries."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

39. "The struggle, if it were one, need not be described."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

40. "Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

The Classic 19th century popular novelist and short story writer won many hearts through his work of fiction that showed the follies of society.

If you want to find meaningful Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes like, "The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits", then read on!

41. "With Heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the Devil!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

42. "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."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

43. "People always grow more foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

44. "Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

45. "Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

46. "Benevolence is the twin of pride."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

47. "Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Blithedale Romance'.

48. "he seemed to be in quest for mental food, not heart sustenance."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

49. "The Artist of the Beautiful"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

50. "It might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

51. "Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The Scarlet Letter'.

52. "The wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

53. "May not one man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

54. "A pure hand needs no glove to cover it."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

55. "A flower of strange beauty, growing in a desolate spot, and blossoming in the wind."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The novel is based on the characters of Hester Prynne, who is marked by the Scarlet Letter for her fallen character. Quotes from 'The Scarlet Letter' will transport you to the streets of America in the 19th century and will allow you to witness the cruelty society bestows on women in the name of chastity.

56. "There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

57. "The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart converted it into a tomb."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

58. "It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

59. "No, my little Pearl! Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

60. "Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

61. "But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

62. "Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

63. "Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

64. "Be it sin or no, I hate the man!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

65. "To the untrue man, the whole universe is false - it is impalpable - it shrinks to nothing within his grasp."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

66. "Such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

67. "We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

68. "The horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it!"

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

69. "The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

70. "It was cause enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne.

71. "Ever afterwards so touched, and so transfigured."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

72. "It was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

73. "Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

74. "'Woman, I could wellnigh pity thee!' said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Here are some more Nathaniel Hawthorne's quotes.

75. "Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

76. "Success presented itself as an impossibility, and the hope of it as a wild hallucination."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

77. "Pleasant is a rainy winter's day, within doors!"

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

78. "Many, many years have I waited for it! It is late! It is late! I want my happiness!"

- Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'The House Of The Seven Gables'.

79. "The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us.."

- Nathanial Hawthorne.

80. "The past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy of the present and the future."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'House Of The Seven Gables'.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes then why not take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes, or Cormac McCarthy quotes?

‍