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41 " Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , Mosses from an Old Manse
42 " Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne
43 " The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The House of the Seven Gables
44 " There was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. The leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The Scarlet Letter
45 " Possibly, he was in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights, sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to the new mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone a kind of new creation, after its longsuspended life. "
46 " When he is cheerful--when the sun shines into his mind--then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls! "
47 " Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. "
48 " It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman "
49 " A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , Fanshawe
50 " ... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones. "
51 " Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible. "
52 " Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring! "
53 " It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did they meet in the dim wood that it was like the first encounter in the world beyond the grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost. "
54 " And as for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality. "
55 " I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am! "
56 " It was one of those moments—which sometimes occur only at the interval of years—when 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. "
57 " Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body. "
58 " An infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmuring about in quest of what was once a world! "
59 " Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , Young Goodman Brown
60 " Preach! Write! Act! Do any thing, save to lie down and die! "