Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.… - Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

pursuit happiness follow incendentally wild-goose-chase
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About Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) was an American writer remembered for his romance novels (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun) and short stories.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Monsieur de l’Aubépine
Birth Name: Nathaniel Hathorne
Alternative Names: Monsieur de l'Aubépine • N. H.
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Shorter versions of this quote

Originators like Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Thomas Hardy George Eliot Charles Dickens Theodore Dreiser E. M. Forster

Additional quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne

How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and evenly coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate!
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