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

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

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream it may be so the moment after death.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne