All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them.

To the untrue man, the whole universe is false — it is impalpable — it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.

Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.