The collection / 121 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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02Undated

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the h

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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03Undated

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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04Undated

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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05Undated

Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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06Undated

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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07Undated

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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08Undated

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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09Undated

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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10Undated

There are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency—which I now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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11Undated

On Andrew Jackson: "His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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12Undated

Do anything, save to lie down and die!

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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13Undated

In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be seen emerging-and could have been from the very first-the steadfast principles of an unflinching courage-an uncontrollable will-a sturdy pride which might be disciplined into self-respect-and a bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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14Undated

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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15Undated

Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs... Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance?

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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16Undated

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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17Undated

Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield)

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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18Undated

All have some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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19Undated

Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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20Undated

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?

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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21Undated

The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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22Undated

There was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. The leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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23Undated

Possibly, he was in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights, sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to the new mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone a kind of new creation, after its longsuspended life.

Nathaniel Hawthorne / quote

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24Undated

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 / quote

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