The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Quotes from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

• We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
• 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.
• It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.
• She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.
• I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
• It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.
• It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.
• It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.
• We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.