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
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Affection and expression are vital for love to thrive, just like leaves are essential for a tree's life.
This quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne emphasizes the importance of expressing love and affection in relationships. Just as leaves nourish a tree, keeping love alive requires gestures of tenderness and affection; otherwise, it risks withering away.
Themes
LoveAffectionExpressionRelationshipNurture
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding toast, one could reference this quote to highlight the importance of expressing love and affection.
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
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 HawthorneRead
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
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