“What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, 1851, Ch. XI: The Arched Window

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.”

“All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.”

“The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything.”

“I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one.”

“Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.”

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”