Thomas Hardy quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Hardy on Wise Famous Quotes.

But it was also obvious that man could not live by work alone; that the particular man Jude, at any rate, wanted something to love.

If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.

I have danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile and many a long day.

Tis my belief she's a very good woman at bottom."
"She's terrible deep, then.

...you have torn my life all to pieces.. made me a victim, a caged bird!

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely that a feather would turn them.

Done because we are too many.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.

But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.

Where we are would be Paradise to me, if you would only make it so.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

One's pretty lively when ruined.

He supposed he was not a sufficiently dignified person for suicide.Peaceful death abhorred him as a subject and would not take him.

She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had a consciousnesss that love was encircling her like a perfume.

He'd seen a man look a fool a good many times, but never such a fool as that bull looked when he found his pious feelings had been played upon ...

And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you.
-Gabriel Oak

It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

Better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.

My wicked heart will ramble on in spite of myself. (Arabella)

She was but a transient impression, half forgotten.

A half knowledge of another's life mostly does injustice to the life unknown.

It is never too late to break off a marriage that's distasteful to you.

Who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been melted into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck ...

Women accept their destiny more readily than men.

Though when at home their countenances varied with the seasons, their market faces all the year round were glowing little fires.

The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!'
And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?

She's brim full of poetry - actualized poetry, if I may use the expression. She lives what paper-poets only write ...

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

Bygones would never be complete bygones till she was a bygone herself.

To keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in matters of enterprise.

Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! ... She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more.

Matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion.

I forgot the defective can be more than the whole

You are a chameleon, and now you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate you!

Aspect are within us, and who seems most kingly is king.

People who have always gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of going right as those do who have gone wrong.

Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer: and they were again silent.

We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.

You are absolutely the most ethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew to exist without inhuman sexlessness.

Rays of male vision seem to have a tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts;

An Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit.

The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.

Because 'tis always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis convenient.

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown.

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

No, I am not a lady,' she said sadly. 'I never shall be. But he's a gentleman, and that - makes it - O how difficult for me!

Feeling had indeed smothered judgment that day.

Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what tomorrow has in store?

Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being.

They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon ans stars were as ardent as they.

How did this remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposed by many to be at the bottom of the sea?

How would you draw the line between women with something and women with nothing in them?

Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.

The village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the extended hand.

There are considerations even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made-ties you know nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I.

Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply "Here!" to a body's cry of "Where?

I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!

To be lectured because the lecturer saw her in the cold morning light of open-shuttered disillusion was exasperating.

He resolved never again, by look or by sign, to interrupt the steady flow of this man's life.

Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with love for some one at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as done.

I can't bear that they, and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live their own way!

It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness,

Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes

This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock.

It was quite impossible, he found, to ask to be delivered from temptation when your heart's desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven.

The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line.

You temptress,Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon- I could not resist you as soon as I met you again.

How unexpected [are] the attacks of destiny!

She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them.

Fear is the mother of foresight.

If she had not been imprudence incarnate, she would not have acted as she did when she met Henchard by accident a day or two later.

He was like one who had half fainted, and could neither recover nor complete the swoon.

Emotions would be half starved if there were no candle-light.

A novel is an impression, not an argument.

That cold accretion called the world, so terrible in the mass, is so non formidable, even pitiable, in its units.

If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.

Sometimes more bitterness is sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life;

In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked that she was, and forgot that the defective can more than the entire.

It being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one.

The roof was a gymnasium for the winds

Once victim, always victim-that's the law.

A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.

Her presence had not so much weight as to task thought, and yet enough to exercise it.

December morning - sunny and exceedingly mild - might have regarded Gabriel

If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways - not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.

It troubled her much to see what a great flame a little wildfire was likely to kindle.

So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope ...

A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing alive enough to have strength to die. (from "Neutral Tones")

Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you.

and yet to every bad, there is a worse

You could see the skeleton behind the man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton.

And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.

The truth is, that I never care much for reading what one ought to read; I wish I did, but I cannot help it. And,

Let there be truth at last,/ Even if despair.

Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct.

But nobody did come, because nobody does: and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out if the world.