The Scarlet Letter Quotes With Page Numbers
“All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.”
~Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, Pages 13,14
“It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, Pages 14, 15
“It is a good lesson – though it may often be a hard one – for a man… to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, Page 16
“But, all this while, I was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence had mediated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, Page 25
“But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, Page 26
“It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 2, Page 34
“In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 2, Pages 34, 35
“She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 50
“To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 50
“But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 51
“Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 53
“In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it… She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Pages 53-54
“…if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom…”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 55
“…such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 5, Page 56
“Or—but this more rarely happened—she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother, in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 6, Page 59
“No, my little Pearl! Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 7, Page 66
“When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 9, Pages 81, 82
“Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 10, Page 84
“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 11, Page 94
“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 12, Page 101
“We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 12, Page 101
“It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13, Page 103
“If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or–and the outward semblance is the same–crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13, Page 106
“Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13, Page 106
“It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thoughts alone suffice them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13, Page 106
“…Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 14, Page 110
“It was one of those moments—which sometimes occur only at the interval of years—when a man’s moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind’s eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 14, Page 111
“Be it sin or no, I hate the man!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 114
“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 115
“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 115
“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart… converted it into a tomb.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 117
“There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 117
“She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 16, Page 120
“There was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. The leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 16, Page 123
“It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another’s actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did they meet in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of the two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, more wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost! They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves; because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does, except at such breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was the dreariest in the interview. They now felt themselves, at last, inhabitants of the same sphere.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 17, Page 124
“I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 17, Page 125
“Do anything, save to lie down and die!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 17, Page 130
“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness… Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods… The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 131
“The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 131
“But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 131
“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 133
“Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 133
“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, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 20, Page 142
“What a strange, sad man is he!” said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. “In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with is hand always over his heart!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 21, Page 151
“We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 21, Page 153
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 22, Page 158
“Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 23, Page 169
“it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 24, Page 172
“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 24, Page 172
“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 24, Page 172
The Scarlett Letter Summary
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel set in Puritan New England in the mid-17th century. It follows protagonist Hester Prynne, who is publicly shamed for having a child out of wedlock.
She is forced to wear the scarlet letter “A” as a sign of her shame while her child’s father, the local minister, hides in silence. Throughout the story, Hester is forced to confront her sin and the hypocrisy of the Puritan society in which she lives.
She is eventually reunited with her lover and can start a new life with her daughter. The novel is a stark portrayal of the consequences of sin and how society can be both oppressive and liberating.
It is a classic story of redemption and the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
What is a famous quote from The Scarlet Letter?
“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 12, Page 101
What is the final quote in The Scarlet Letter?
“On a field, sable, the letter A, gules”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 24, Page 175
What is the quote from The Scarlet Letter about sin?
“But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 131
What quotes from The Scarlet Letter show love?
“Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 18, Page 133
“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 24, Page 172
“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 15, Page 115
“It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 13, Page 103