102 quotes
It is because the spirit is inestimable that the lifeless body is so little valued.
The Blithedale Romance (1852)
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream: it may be so the moment after death.
The American Notebooks (1835)
If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances.
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Every crime destroys more Edens than our own.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
The American Notebooks (1835)
Nervous and excitable persons need to talk a great deal, by way of letting off their steam.
The English Notebooks (1853)
It [Catholicism] supplies a multitude of external forms in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested.
She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
The Birthmark (1843)
The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth.
The Wedding Knell (1837)
No fountain is so small but that heaven may be imaged in its bosom.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
The American Notebooks (1835)
Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works.
The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens and wallflowers need ruin to make them grow.
The Marble Faun (1860)
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
The American Notebooks (1835)
Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril.
The Gray Champion (1835)
What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
The American Notebooks (1835)