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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
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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

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.
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The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
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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.
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