A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest. Thomas Hardy More Quotes by Thomas Hardy More Quotes From Thomas Hardy 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 Thomas Hardy beautifulmenphilosophy Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with love for some one at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as done. Thomas Hardy possibilityhoursdone The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things. Thomas Hardy novelistspoetshows But no one came. Because no one ever does. Thomas Hardy doe Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds Thomas Hardy assumptiondeedsperfect Do you know that I have undergone three quarters of this labour entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter? Thomas Hardy quartersthreesake There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Thomas Hardy disappointmentlossdesire You don't talk quite like a girl who has had no advantages. Thomas Hardy advantagegirl - the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man. Thomas Hardy sensitivegirlmen Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess? Thomas Hardy tessstarssound He's charmed by her as if she were some fairy!" continued Arabella. "See how he looks round at her, and lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don't care for him quite so much as he does for her. She's not a particular warm-hearted creature to my thinking, though she cares for him pretty middling much-- as much as she's able to; and he could make her heart ache a bit if he liked to try--which he's too simple to do. Thomas Hardy eyeheartthinking When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often then not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover. Thomas Hardy adventloverssecret ...Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I couldn't forget your voice!' 'For how long?' 'O - ever so long. Days and days.' 'Days and days! Only days and days? O, the heart of a man! Days and days!' 'But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not a full-blown love - it was the merest bud - red, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion in embryo. It never returned. Thomas Hardy passionheartmen She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises. Thomas Hardy familypartymother It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness. Thomas Hardy pleasurepainimagination 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. Thomas Hardy strong-womenpracticeself Their position was perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale, being above the line at which neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too little of enough. Thomas Hardy linesstressfeelings You ride well, but you don't kiss nicely at all. Thomas Hardy wellskissing By experience", says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then? Thomas Hardy rogeruselong 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. Thomas Hardy shepherdsdreamweather
