Quotes from Thomas Hardy

His affection itself was less fire than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased to believe he ceased to follow: contrasting in this with many impressionable natures, who remain sensuously infatuated with what they intellectually despise.

The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower.

In reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the chapters of "Far from the Madding Crowd" as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word "Wessex" from the pages of early English history, and give it a fictitious significance as the existing name of the district once included in that extinct kingdom.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die;

his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.

Corporeal presence is sometimes less appealing than corporeal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real.

Her refusal, though unexpected, did not permanently daunt Clare. His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative.

He spoke in squarely shaped sentences, and was supremely satisfied with a condition of sublunary things which made weapons a necessity.

Es preciso aclarar que este tipo de jarra, por razones inciertas, recibe en Weatherbury y en sus inmediaciones el nombre de Dios-me-perdone, acaso porque su tamaño hace que cualquier bebedor se avergüence de si mismo al ver el Fondo tras haberla vaciado

Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.

Poor Sorrow's campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancy - luckily perhaps for himself, considering his beginnings. In the blue of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed his last, and when the other children awoke they cried bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty baby.

Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself

Algunas mujeres sólo necesitan una emergencia para demostrar que son capaces de manejarla.

It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson

pues gozan los pastores, en común con los marinos, del privilegio de saber llamar a Dios en lugar de esperarlo.

Tess Durberyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience

All the while she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpended youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight

With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could

Poor darlings-to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours! [...] She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no foundation in Nature

Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion.

Perhaps in no minor point does 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 sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true.

Then the difference between a common man and a recognized poet is, that one has been deluded, and cured of his delusion, and the other continues deluded all his days.

Gabriel, para quien el rostro de Bathseba era como la gloria incierta de un día de abril, se mostraba atento al menor de sus cambios.

harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except themselves.