Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing second, the gratification of ones family and friends and lastly, the solid cash. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? — the cuckoo clock. – Graham Greene and Orson Wells, The Third Man