Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.\

It is easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song, but the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, and it always comes with years, and the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through the tears.

It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.

Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.

You cannot build up a character in a solitude; you need a formed character to stand a solitude.

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

A stout heart may be ruined in fortune but not in spirit.

If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it- to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger.

It's not so much what you accomplish in life that really matters, but what you overcome that proves who you are, what you are, and whether you are a champion.

There is a sort of natural instinct of human dignity in the heart of man which steels his very nerves not to bend beneath the heavy blows of a great adversity. The palm-tree grows best beneath a ponderous weight, even so the character of man. There is no merit in it, it is a law of psychology. The petty pangs of small daily cares have often bent the character of men, but great misfortunes seldom. There is less danger in this than in great good luck.

The person who can dominate during rough times is the person who can dominate, period.

Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.

Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear-- don't fire up your hearts with so much grief. No reason to blame the pass you've come to now.

It is a rose planted in your heart, and as it's thorns tear you, so does it thrive and flower

Nothing befalls any man which he is not fitted to endure.

Character - Some day, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process.

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable.

Trying to find comfort in perpetual discomfort has been my life's work.

Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure.

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

Here's a sigh to those who love me,And a smile to those who hate;And, whatever sky's above me,Here's a heart for every fate.