WORDS FROM A GREAT MIND

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Novelist & short-story writer

Born: 4 July 1804
Died: 19 May 1864
Lived in: Salem, Concord, Liverpool & Rome

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short-story writer whose fiction examines secrecy, guilt, judgement, and the weight of the past. His best-known works include The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables.

A LESSER-KNOWN DETAIL

He was born Nathaniel Hathorne and later added the letter “w” to his surname. One possible reason was to distance himself from an ancestor involved in the Salem witch trials.

Words by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne ↗

“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne ↗

“Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”

Nathaniel Hawthorne ↗