Hester Prynne Quotes

12 quotes from 7 authors

Hester Prynne, the resilient heroine of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, has long sparked reflection. Here you’ll find twelve memorable lines from seven distinct voices, each illuminating her strength, defiance, and moral dilemmas. The selection shows why her story still matters in talks of identity and personal agency.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

A hundred years ago Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter was given an A for adultery; today she would rate no better…

Peter De Vries

Image

“Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image

“They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image

Aria: I went to Hollis. Because I was looking for...you know. Her. She was teaching an art class, so I ran inside,…

Sara Shepard

Image

“Cancer is tangible. People feel compassion for you if you get cancer. Not so much if you're an alcoholic. And a mother…

Amy Hatvany (Yurk

Image

“A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way.…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image

“But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed,…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image

“As Hester Prynne seemed to see some trace of her own sin in every bosom, by the glare of the Scarlet Letter…

Louisa May Alcott

Image

“There is no room for rosy eyed acceptance of the cultural decay around us. Highly suspect will be any Christian literary and…

Kevin Swanson

Image

“The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image

“Lillian was determined that her next role would be Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and assumed she only needed…

Cari Beauchamp

Image

“It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another’s actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely…

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image