Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.

He that does evil hates the light.

Secrecy is the original sin. The fig leaf in the Garden of Eden. The basic crime against love.

I come from a highly moral family. I was very much taught what was right and wrong, and in my perception of things, I did something that was very wrong. To know that, and to then be so publicly exposed, was very hard.

It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret.

Sometimes I hid my family connections.

The idea that the more you hide something, the more it becomes something that's supposed to feel shameful is very true.

Regardless of any thing that I've done that people might think, 'Oh, well, that deserved a scarlet letter,' that's not how it works.

Sin thrives in the dungeon, but slap it on the table for all to see, and it withers rather quickly.

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

If you can tell anyone about it, it's not the worst thing you ever did.

The truth is a young maiden as modest as she is beautiful, and therefore she is always seen cloaked.

When we do something we're not proud of, a lot of people don't want to look at that, people may say "what people don't know won't hurt them."

Secret guilt by silence is betrayed.

In Anglo-Saxon countries the prostitutes look as if they purveyed, along with sin, the attendant pains of hell.

How can you qualify the difference between a sin and a lie.

He never said "Don't tell your mama." He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me... (109)

Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.

I often felt like I was walking around with this Scarlet Letter stitched to my chest from the way that people treated me.

you could have forgiven my committing a sin if you hadn't feared that I had a committed a pleasure as well.

It’s a simple truth that a secret is something you’re ashamed of.

Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy...He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone.

I see no sin in a kiss. I only see sin in the condemnation