Scarlet Letter Quotes

"Not thy soul…No not thine!" (1)

Chillingworth (1)

"No, my little Pearl!..Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!" (1)

Hester (1)

"My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into the dungeon-thence, peradventure to the gallows!" (2)

Chillingworth (2)

"We are not the worst sinners in the world?" (1)

Dimmesdale (1)

"Is there not shade enough in all the boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?" (2)

Hester (2)

"Wilt thou go with us tonight? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one." (1)

Mistress Hibbins (1)

"Art thou a Christian child - ha? Dost thou know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elves or fairies whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?" (1)

Rev Wilson (1)

"Why dost thou smile so at me?" "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?" (3)

Hester (3)

"He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!" (4)

Hester (4)

"The judgment of God is on me," "It is too mighty for me to struggle with!" (2)

Dimmesdale (2)

"And will he always keep his hand over his heart?" (1)

Pearl (1)

"I pray you, good Sir. Who is this woman? - and wherefore is she here set up to publish shame." (4)

Chillingworth (4)

"I am brought hither by this Indian to be redeemed out of my captivity" (5)

Chillingworth (5)

"Speak to the woman, my brother. Exhort her to confess the truth!"

Rev Wilson

"I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and thy fellow-sufferer!" (4)

Dimmesdale (4)

"But he will be known! - he will be known! - he will be known!" (5)

Chillingworth (5)

"Cans't thou tell me, my child, who made thee?" (2)

Rev Wilson (2)

"I have no heavenly father!" (2)

Pearl (2)

"This badge hath taught me - it daily teaches me - it is teaching me at this moment - lessons whereif my child may be the wiser and better." (5)

Hester (5)

"Hist, hist! Wilt thou go with us tonight? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one."

Mistress Hibbins

"Speak thou for me! Thou wast my pastor, and hadst changed my soul, knowest me better than these man can."

Hester

"She is my happiness! She is my torture nonetheless." (6)

Hester (6)

"From the moment that we came down the old church steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale of fire of the scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path." (6)

Chillingworth (6)

"Once in my life I met the Black Man." (7)

Hester (7)

"Wilt thou stand here…tomorrow noontide?"

Pearl

"Happy are you, Hester, that wears the Scarlet Letter openly upon your bosom."

Dimmesdale

"I said, but now, that there could be no good event for him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling at every step, over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path. It is not so! There might be good for thee and thee alone." (8)

Hester (8)

"People of New England, I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood." (3)

Dimmesdale (3)

"The sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of your bosom."

Pearl

"I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy."

Chillingworth

"I pray you, if thou hast any means of pacifying the child, do it forthwith!… Pacify her if thou lovest me!"

Dimmesdale

"Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee."

Hester

"If it be the soul's disease, then I do commit myself to the one Physician of the soul!"

Dimmesdale

"It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may."

Chillingworth

"We are not…the worst sinners in the world. there is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man…has violated in cold blood the sanctity of the human heart."

Dimmesdale

"Doth he love us? Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together into the town?"

Pearl