Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body.
Nathaniel HawthorneTrusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.
Nathaniel HawthorneIt was one of those momentsโwhich sometimes occur only at the interval of yearsโwhen a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now.
Nathaniel HawthorneThe world surely has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime and more than one to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily.
Nathaniel HawthorneSome attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, orโand the outward semblance is the sameโcrushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.
Nathaniel Hawthorne