“Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850, Ch. X: The Leech and His Patient

About Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804 – 1864

American novelist, author of "The Scarlet Letter".

“Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally.”

“It is perilous to make a chasm in human affections; not that they gape so long and wide—but so quickly close again!”

“Would Time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should all be young men, all of us, and until Doom's Day.”

“Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.”

“While both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”

“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

“If you would keep your Secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”