Thomas Hardy Quotes

The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts.

My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

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

"Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women… O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?" — Esdras.

"I am sorry to shock you," she said. "But the moth eats the garment somewhat in five-and thirty years."

"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?

The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary... She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind — or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.

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

Here by the baring bough Raking up leaves, Often I ponder how Springtime deceives,— I, an old woman now, Raking up leaves.

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

She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun.

She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly - the thought of the world's concern at her situation - was founded on illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides, Tess was only a passing thought.

Don't take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose sweetheart she is, since she can't be yours?'

'That's the very thing I say to myself,' said Gabriel.

The thought of Pascal’s was brought home to him: “A mesure qu‘on a plus d’esprit, on trouve qu’il y a plus d’hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre les hommes.

"He's charmed by her as if she were some fairy!" continued Arabella. "See how he looks round at her, and lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don't care for him quite so much as he does for her. She's not a particular warm-hearted creature to my thinking, though she cares for him pretty middling much — as much as she's able to; and he could make her heart ache a bit if he liked to try — which he's too simple to do."