Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

"We are all fools and knaves in our own fashion."

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without getting bewildered as to which may be true."

"The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove oneself a fool."

"Some people can look smug in the face of their own death."

"Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."

"Individuality is the aim of political liberty."

"Time flies never to be recalled."

"It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom."

"Amidst the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, as to awaken in us a sense of the most perfect order and harmony."

"A man's heart is a depository of a thousand secrets."

"What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests."

"The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasure of a candid majority; and second, the improvement of mankind."

"Moonlight is sculpture."

"Life is made up of marble and mud."

"Jealousy is not a gentle passion."

"Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."

"There is evil in every human heart."

"Art has a power over life and death."

"A woman's strength lies in her gentleness."

"Nature never gets exhausted."

"Dreams are the brain's attempt to solve problems."

"Every crime is a departure from nature."

"Despair is the only one of the vices which was not incorporated into the system of human nature."

"Hope is the best possession of man."

"Providence has its own time and its own way."

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."

"There is no more obnoxious character than that fastidious man or woman."

"Education is the most important element of humanity's progress."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."