Quotes by Thomas Hardy

About Thomas Hardy:

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Cultivate the art of renunciation.

Thomas Hardy

To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery, is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations from an old experience...

Thomas Hardy

And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to me, and think, "Poor girl!" believing they do great justice to my memory by this. But they will never, never realize that it was my single opportunity of existence, as well as of doing my du...

Thomas Hardy

But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are.

Thomas Hardy

There is always an inertia to be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct – not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.

Thomas Hardy

He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan-a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society.

Thomas Hardy

Such a women as you a hundred men always convet - your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unvailing fancy for you - you can only marry one of that many...The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all of these m...

Thomas Hardy

This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock.

Thomas Hardy

He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church-yes, he is!' 'I am afeard nobody ever saw him there. I never did, certainly.' 'The reason of that is,' she said eagerly, 'that he goes in privately by the old ...

Thomas Hardy

When the love-led man had ceased from his labours Bathsheba came and looked him in the face. 'Gabriel, will you you stay on with me?' she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was ...

Thomas Hardy

We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.

Thomas Hardy

This good fellowship - camaraderie - usually occurring through the 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. Where, howeve...

Thomas Hardy

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 without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides...

Thomas Hardy

He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break.

Thomas Hardy

It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.

Thomas Hardy

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having f...

Thomas Hardy

He had just reached the time of life at which 'young' is ceasing to be the prefix of 'man' in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine life, for his intellect and emotions were clearly separate; he had passed the time during which...

Thomas Hardy

Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.

Thomas Hardy

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 without possession

Thomas Hardy

Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants.

Thomas Hardy

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

Thomas Hardy

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Hardy
  • DescriptionEnglish novelist and poet
  • BornJune 2, 1840
  • DiedJanuary 11, 1928
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionPoet; Writer; Novelist
  • WorksTess Of The D'Urbervilles; Far From The Madding Crowd; Jude The Obscure
  • AwardsOrder Of Merit