Nathaniel Hawthorne

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and read more

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting read more

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

Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest
excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; read more

Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest
excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; he
throws out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every
human soul is profoundly though unutterably conscious.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down read more

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.

And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger
about the spot where once stood a homestead, read more

And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger
about the spot where once stood a homestead, but where there is
now only a ruined chimney rising our of a grassy and weed-grown
cellar? They offer their fruit to every wayfarer--apples that
are bitter-sweet with the moral of times vicissitude.