Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True love requires deep emotional connection, not just superficial attraction.
This quote emphasizes that a man's pursuit of a woman's love should not be merely to possess her, but to genuinely engage her heart and emotions. Hawthorne warns that failing to kindle her true passions may lead to regret, as she might find fulfillment elsewhere, leaving him with only the facade of happiness.
Themes
LovePassionEmotionsHeartRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
In a wedding speech to highlight the importance of emotional connection in marriage.
More from Nathaniel Hawthorne
All quotes →A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
There is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance; and, even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which we purchase it.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
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 HawthorneRead
Similar quotes
If you love someone, you say it, right then, out loud. Otherwise, the moment just passes you by.
Julia RobertsRead
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
William CowperRead
There's nothing you can do that can't be done, Nothing you can sing that can't be sung, Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game, It's easy..._x000D_ All you need is love.
John LennonRead
For anew Self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.
Shams TabriziRead
Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?" "Sometimes people don't always understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?" I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.
John GreenRead
Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them. Passion lurks within interstice. It is grouting rather than bricks.
Lionel ShriverRead