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

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

An infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmuring about in quest of what was once a world!

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

Be it sin or no, I hate the man!

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and high, as when its glow was chastened by adversity.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

Calm, gentle, passionless as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

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?

— Nathaniel Hawthorne