Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World!

Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.

You can't depend on the kind of folks people think they are - you've got to go by what they do. And I wouldn't give much for a man that some folks hadn't thought was a fool, in his time.

You meet lots of people in your life, and sometimes you think that people are a certain way, and then they reveal themselves to be a different way.

Most portraits are lies. People are rarely what they appear to be, especially in front of a camera. You might know me your entire lifetime and never reveal yourself to me. To interpret wrinkles as character is insult not insight.

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.

I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.

There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.

I have always felt that everybody on earth goes about in disguise.

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.

Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be.

In human character, simplicity doesn't exist except among simpletons.

You can never be sure of anyone until you're close enough to see them clearly.

It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only.

I just always look for stuff that has a character-driven thing.

Dad's Theory of Arrogance--that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire and/or Loathing in everybody else's Broadway Play.

Going to a bar or pool hall doesn’t mean you’re a drunk, just like sitting in a henhouse doesn’t make you a chicken. It’s the same in the opposite setting. Sitting in a church building doesn’t make you a follower of Christ.

Anyone who has looked deeply into the world may guess how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of men. The instinct that preserves them teaches them to be flighty light, and false.

People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.

A German writer observes: "The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.

The only way of really finding out a man's true character is to play golf with him. In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself.

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be.