We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove ones self a fool the truest heroism is to resist the doubt and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
When scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed with sky, and gradually transformed into it. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
A womans chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats. – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present. – William Lloyd Garrison