Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

The truth is that the right decision often can't be led with either head or heart exclusively.

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.

I've always made my decisions based on two factors: intellectual analysis and my gut. And when they meet, that's a go from me. That's when I see the goal.

I distrust thought. The interior life is highly overrated. I don't like the wispy and the vague... or inductive logic in any kind of writing. I'm impatient with writers who make too much sense. The better things that I've done have come to me by instinct.

At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts hold dominion over our heads.

I'm generally slow to anger, quick to forgive, and I take in information before making decisions. So no matter how controversial the decision, my general demeanour is to put on white lab coat and gloves and look at the evidence, weigh the arguments and see what makes sense.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

Things slow down, the ball seems a lot bigger and you feel like you have more time. Everything computes - you have options, but you always take the right one.

Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though in truth his dreaming must be not out of proportion to his waking.

I tend to over-analyse things. I'm not the type of person to flip a coin and let things happen.

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

It's important you don't lose touch with reality because, well, reality's the only thing you've got, really.

You can't get your head around something if you're yelling.

If there is one rule I have, it is you have to remain level-headed.

Without our emotions, we can't make smart decisions.

Sometimes emotions are more important than rationality.

Common sense is often underrated.

Don't over think too much.

I've always been able to put things in perspective.

It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why a man may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.

When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.