She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one's self a fool.

There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.

The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

This above all: be true, be true, be true.

Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.