Quotes from Thomas Hardy

Biblioll College. Sir,—I have read your letter with interest; and, judging from your description of yourself as a working-man, I venture to think that you will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course. That, therefore, is what I advise you to do. Yours faithfully, T. Tetuphenay. To Mr. J. Fawley, Stone-mason.

who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been melted into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck...

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding.

Uncork the cider...Sabbath or no!

What depressed you? Life.

This good fellowship - camaraderie - usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom super-added to love between the sexes because men and women associate not in their labors but in their pleasures merely.

The reason of that is, she said eagerly, that he goes in privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He told me so. This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it.

Perhaps, as with many men, their opportunities of observation were not so good as their opportunities of expression.

Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means more effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.

we know very well women scarcely ever jilt men; 'tis men who jilt us.

The fact that four centuries had neither proved it to be founded on a mistake, inspired any hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that had battered it down, invested this simple grey effort of old minds with a repose, if not a grandeur, which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb in its ecclesiastical and military compeers.

Once victim, always victim-that's the law.

My dear Sue,—Of course I wish you joy! And also of course I will give you away. What I suggest is that, as you have no house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend's, but from mine. It would be more proper, I think, since I am, as you say, the person nearest related to you in this part of the world. I don't see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way? Surely you care a bit about me still!—Ever your affectionate, Jude.

It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing any great sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope: when the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at opportunities for ambition that have been passed by, and anticipation does not prompt to enterprise.   The

away from courting me—" Gabriel expanded. "I'm sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear," he said, with a grateful sense of favours

Judge me by my future works.

How did this remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposed by many to be at the bottom of the sea?

what only hurts me now would torture and kill me then!

The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself.

Well, because it is provokingly wrong. I am a sort of negation of it. You are very philosophical. 'A negation' is profound talking.

Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, But I'll shake it off. Yes, I will shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I'll be bitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I'll laugh in derision! - Eustacia Vye

The 'appetite for joy' which pervades all creation, that tremendous force which sways humanity to its purpose, as the ride sways the helpless weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over the social rubric

Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different quality - soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals.

Five years, nine months, and a few days. Fifteen months nearly have passed since he vanished, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement of little more than five years?