On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets, some of … - Thomas Hardy

Perhaps in no minor point does a woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false – except indeed in that of being utterly skeptical on strictures that she knows to be true.

I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them — one or two of them particularly — almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel — to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man — no man short of a sensual savage — will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes.

What a grand revenge you have taken! I saw you innocent, and I deceived you. Four years after, you find me a Christian enthusiast; you then work upon me, perhaps to my complete perdition! But Tess, my coz, as I used to call you, this is only my way of talking, and you must not look so horribly concerned. Of course you have done nothing except retain your pretty face and shapely figure. I saw it on the rick before you saw me — that tight pinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet — you field-girls should never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger.