Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter Quotes & Sayings

If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, — Nathaniel Hawthorne

He could never get used to her, she was fresh every time, she was a casketful of secrets. Any moment now she would open herself up, reveal to him the essential thing, the hidden thing at the core of her life, or of her life, or of his life
the thing he was longing to know. The thing he'd always wanted. — Margaret Atwood

Externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humor, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones.
It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break
these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward? — Laurie Halse Anderson

Struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Maybe if my heart stops
Beating it won't hurt this much. — Paramore

Destroy! destroy! destroy! hums the under-consciousness. Love and produce! Love and produce! cackles the upper consciousness. And the world hears only the Love-and- produce cackle. Refuses to hear the hum of destruction under- neath. Until such time as it will have to hear. — D.H. Lawrence

But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I feel very confident that Americans flying in the air are safe and that only under the most dire of circumstances would our pilots ever even request permission to do that. — Hugh Shelton

I am a sports enthusiast, and if given an opportunity, I want to be a sportsman, even today. I want to promote the sport that is indigenous to India. Kabaddi is a matter of national pride. Why can't cricket, hockey, football and kabaddi be given equal platforms and co-exist? I believe that can happen. — Abhishek Bachchan

The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumor than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER — Nathaniel Hawthorne

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. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Humans are mysterious creatures. There comes a time when we can clearly understand even things that we can't see. It's the same with anything. If you try your best, you can understand what it's like to "try your best". If you don't try your best, you understand what it's like to "not try your best". — Sakura Tsukuba

Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs ... Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me. — Annie Ilonzeh

You shall have whatever you like,' said Grandcourt.
'And nothing that I don't like? - please say that; because I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like,' said Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise where all her nonsense is adorable. — George Eliot

Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

She would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast - at her, the child of honourable parents - at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be a woman - at her, who had once been innocent - as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I think there are so many problems in the world today, we have to figure out how to fix them rather than point fingers at each other. — Shane Smith

My mother was kind," she said. "She had a kind heart. Your mother? She was organized. My mother would sit up with her own kids when they were sick, and she'd sit up with you, too. Your mother would march into the kitchen like a top sergeant and say to my mother, 'Levinson, stop crying, put on a brassiere, fix yourself up. — Vivian Gornick

It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I t was a well-known fact among Christian homeschoolers that public
schools were bastions of gangs, drugs, teen pregnancy, rap music, pop culture, secular humanism, witchcraft, and body piercings. — Josh Sundquist

Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city school and broken black families. — Star Parker

Don't get attached to moments. Good or bad, they all pass. — Yasmin Mogahed

If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom ... — Nathaniel Hawthorne

But life is not evens and odds and solving for x. And sadness? Sadness is an equation made of all variables. — Emery Lord