A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

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

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

America is now wholly given over to a damned 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 (by Maria Susanna Cummins), and other books neither better nor worse? Worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the hundred thousand.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

And as for Owen Garland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

And Pearl, stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom, while out of a still lower depth came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne