All Thomas Hardy Quotes
- Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight. Aim
- Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some… Act
- The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things. Business
- Where we are would be Paradise to me, if you would only make it so. Inspirational
- But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. Evolution
- Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized. Beauty
- The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing alive enough to have strength to die. (from "Neutral Tones") Alive
- ...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in… Afar
- 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… Outside
- Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her… Affection
- ...she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness. All
- Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such… Analytical
- The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? -that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?'… All
- He wished she knew his impressions, but he would as soon as thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey… Attempting
- It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible… Accept
- 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;… Absorb
- You ride well, but you don't kiss nicely at all. All
- I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than… Agree
- Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength… Abandon
- You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow;… Becoming