Thomas Hardy Quotes

He had a quick comprehension and considerable force of character; but, being without the power to combine them, the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding the comprehension.

I am now about to enter on my normal condition. For people are almost always in their graves. When we survey the long race of men, it is strange and still more strange to find that they are mainly dead men, who have scarcely ever been otherwise.

There are men whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity — even the reverse, indeed, and without them the band of the worthy is incomplete.

When sorrow ceases to be speculative sleep sees her opportunity.

The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here, and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the fields, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to see them with me. I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet you my own dear! Come to me - come to me, and save me from what threatens me! - Your faithful heartbroken

Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes/I see the motley, mocking fool's-cap rise.

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

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

I think of people more kindly when I am away from them.

One's pretty lively when ruined.

Honour'd Sir — Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do love you. For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to be Away. A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength, and continual dropping will wear away a Stone — ay, more — a Diamond. From Two Well-Wishers

We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by;

Thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to injure that of another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied sould of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech. In the same way to say a little is often to tell more than to say.