A good name is more desirable than great riches.
Love, whether newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
The truth was the one lesson which mankind had learned thoroughly, and not a single generation could forget it.
It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.
These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart.
What we did had a consecration of its own.
It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!
There is no passion in the mind of a bigot.
No man, for any considerable period, can escape this bondage to the past.
She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom!
The scarlet letter had not done its office.
We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals away the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us.
The Scarlet Letter Quotes part 2
Self-reliance is the thing.
It is our curse. Take her, therefore, and let her wear the mark around her neck!
A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side!
The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment.
All of them, darkening their countenances in mutterings of private and public revenge, and interpreting Hester Prynne’s smile as the token of Satan’s mastery over her soul.
None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty.
Men call me wise.
Do you remember me? she whispered.
I will come and inquire again.
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.
It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.
When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.
It was the fatal flaw in the consummation of her earthly being, that it should be for ever misinterpreted.
It was meant for a blessing—for the one blessing of her life!
She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn ecstasy, he traced the letters.
Much of the marble coldness of Hester’s impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought.
He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere.
They said it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.
Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it.
Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from this little Earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered or Done.
People spend their time, in following out word by word, the rule and law written in books, while they should be studying how best to interpret and apply them.
She stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them.
What we did had a consecration of its own.
The truth was the one lesson which mankind had learned thoroughly, and not a single generation could forget it.
What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add hypocrisy to sin?
Be First to Comment