Quotes from Thomas Hardy

Men have oftener suffered from the mockery of a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of surroundings over-sadly tinged.

Boldwood had not been outside his garden since his meeting with Bathsheba in the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone, he had remained in moody meditation on woman's ways, deeming as essentials of the whole sex the accidents of the single one of their number he had ever closely beheld.

As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point on the circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped it. If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man!

And yet to every bad, there is a worse.

His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed.

The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous extent ,though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree: tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at it's bark from year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of it's forks; and countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots.

Shall anything bolder be found than united woman?' Mr Spinks murmured.

He seemed to feel exactly as she felt about life and its surroundings - that they were a tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama.

Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a life-long comradeship tolerable.

she, and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection and love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring, 'Whither does this new current tend to carry me? What does it mean to my future? How does it stand towards my past?

that nobody is wished to see my dead body. "& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. "& that no flours be planted on my grave. "& that no man remember me. "To this I put my name.

Aber manche Frauen brauchen nur die Herausforderung, damit sie ihr gewachsen sind.

The maltster's lack of teeth appeared not to sensibly diminish his powers as a mill. He had been without them for so many years that toothlessness was felt less to be a defect than hard gums an acquisition. Indeed, he seemed to approach the grave as a hyperbolic curve approaches a straight line—less directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all.

In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of heart - all for a man who had wronged them - had never really behaved towards either of them anyhow but selfishly.

Es una suerte poder desdeñar a alguien cuando la mayoría de nosotras se contenta con decir «¡Gracias!». Es como si lo oyera: «No, señor… valgo más que usted» o «Béseme los pies; mi cara es sólo para bocas importantes».

Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognised power.

YaÅŸayan bir s?r ölü bir rezaletten daha az ilgi çekici deÄŸildi.

As without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum.

The secret of happiness lay in limiting the aspirations . . .

Now the people sneer at me--the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush shamefully for my folly. I have lost my respect, my good name, my standing--lost it, never to get it again.

Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine.

Pe ce se bazeaz? oare un poet a c?rui filozofie e socotit? ast?zi ca fiind tot atât de profund? È™i de valabil? pe cît îi e cîntul de proasp?t È™i de pur, cînd vorbeÈ™te despre "planurile divine ale naturii"?

Ojalá hubiera estado sola, como he estado durante el último año, sin esperanzas, ni temores, ni placer, ni dolor.

Era caduto dal suo modesto trono di re pastore fin giù, negli abissi melmosi di Siddim; ma gli erano rimaste una calma dignitosa che non aveva mai conosciuto prima e quell'indifferenza al destino che, benché spesso faccia dell'uomo un violento, diversamente è la base della sua sublimazione. Insomma, la sua caduta in basso era diventata un'ascesa, la perdita un guadagno.