Quotes: Life (2)

Life 819 The price of desire is happiness. "Thousands sold their happiness for a whim." Hawthorne: "The Celestial Rail-Road"

Life 821 Metaphor for death. "There was one strange thing that troubled me; amid the occupations or amusements of the Fair, nothing was more common than for a person—whether at a feast, theater or church or trafficking for wealth and honors…and however unseasonable the interruption—suddenly to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never more seen of his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such little accidents, that they went on with their business, as quietly as if nothing had happened." Hawthorne: "The Celestial Rail-Road"

Life 850 When life is "death in life." "The arrangements and decorations of the banquet were probably intended to signify that death-in-life which had been the testator’s definition of existence." Hawthorne: "The Christmas Banquet"

Life 923 Fully conscious of life. " …his first impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering him again the being of thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility, that he had long ceased to be." Hawthorne: “The Artist of the Beautiful”

Life 923 When we use life to attain something, we realize how fragile life is. "When we desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty of its texture." Hawthorne: “The Artist of the Beautiful”

Life 924 The achiever dies; the sluggish live. "The prophet dies; and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives on; the poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir." Hawthorne: “The Artist of the Beautiful”

Life 945 Life consists of the petty. "…out of the turmoil of their petty perplexities…." Hawthorne: “A Select Party”

Life 1142 The conventions mask the depths of life. "…it seemed to me that all the artifice and conventionalism of life was but an impalpable thinness upon its surface." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Life 1143 Consciousness of life. "It is good to be alive at such times." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Life 1143 Proof of our immortality? "For our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”