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Thomas Hardy Quotes

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Famous Thomas Hardy Quotes

“In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say 'See!' to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply 'Here!' to a body's cry of 'Where?' till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome outworn game.”

MenWellsDoeBodyGamesHoursPoorPlansSeeingCryProduceCreaturesIllJudgedExecutionHide And SeekLoving Nature
Book:Tess of the D'urbervilles
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“How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! ...I do not deserve my lot! ...O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!”

WorldHas BeensHardDoneHeavenDestinyCapableDeserveIllHarmCrueltyTortureSplendidInjuredCrushedBeyond My Control
Book:Return of the Native: Easyread Edition
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“Somebody might have come along that way who would have asked him his trouble, and might have cheered him by saying that his notions were further advanced than those of his grammarian. But nobody did come, because nobody does; and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out of the world.”

WorldWayDoeMightWishTroubleErrorsNotionRecognitionCrush
Book:Jude the Obscure: Works of Hardy
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“That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the center of your time, and not at a point in its 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.”

LittlesFeltCreaturesMercyHarmonyNoiseCrueltyCellsGlareShuddering
Book:The pocket Thomas Hardy, selections from the Wessex novels and poems, made by A.H. Hyatt
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“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 old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.”

KnowsLongHas BeensBookUsePastRememberFindingsLike MeYour PastDoingsAll The BestOld Books
Book:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Diversion Classics)
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“...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 that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.”

ShowsHandsSufferingVirtueFiguresDistanceOccasionsArtisticShadeConsideringVagueHonoredStainsOverlookedAfarDefectiveTess
Book:Thomas Hardy: Three Great Novels
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“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 past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.”

LongLightCarePastWaitingDoubtSorrowBreathsShameAffectionHungrySpellsPersistForgetfulnessGloomySubjectionTessSpectreMoodiness
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
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“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 a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong women the man, many years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order”

MenShouldYearsHas BeensPhilosophyBeautifulOrderShould HavePatternsSnowSensitiveFeminineBlankDoomedShould Have BeenTissuesCoarseWrong ManTess Of The D Urbervilles
Author:Thomas Hardy
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“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?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!”

IfsFirstsLooksSaidSeemsEyeLinesNumbersTroubleTreeHavensRiversFierceThey SaidMorrowInquisitive
Author:Thomas Hardy
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“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 she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.”

WaySelfStrongPracticeConditionsSourceWeaknessWeakOccasionsAbandonStrong WomenSelf RelianceRelianceNoveltyInadequacySelf ReliantWeak Women
Author:Thomas Hardy
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“WEATHERS This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly; And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, And so do I. This is the weather the shepherd shuns, And so do I; When beeches drip in browns and duns, And thresh and ply; And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe, And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, And so do I.”

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Author:Thomas Hardy
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