We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth. - Thomas Hardy

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Engraved portrait of Thomas Hardy, facing left

We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth.

English
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About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy OM (June 2 1840 – January 11 1928) was an English novelist, short story writer and poet.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Bain News Service, publisher (Public domain / CC0)

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Additional quotes by Thomas Hardy

You have never loved me as I love you — never — never! Yours is not a passionate heart — your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite — not a woman!

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Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship — camaraderie — usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death — that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.

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