Thomas Hardy quotes

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet, renowned for his evocative portrayals of rural life and society’s constraints. His major works, such as "Tess of the d’Urbervilles" and "Far from the Madding Crowd," explore themes of fate, love, and human suffering. He influenced generations of writers and remains celebrated for his powerful literary legacy. Here are 208 of his quotes:

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs. (Thomas Hardy)
That man's silence is wonderful to listen to. View quote
Thomas Hardy
My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. View quote
Thomas Hardy
A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle. View quote
Thomas Hardy
The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons. View quote
Thomas Hardy
But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small. (Thomas Hardy)
And yet to every bad there is a worse. View quote
Thomas Hardy
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Some folk want their luck buttered. View quote
Thomas Hardy
I am the family face Flesh perishes, I live on, Projecting trait and trace Through time to times anon, And leaping from place to place Over oblivion. View quote
Thomas Hardy
If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. View quote
Thomas Hardy
He wished she knew his impressions, but he would as soon as thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibles of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent. View quote
Thomas Hardy
In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong. View quote
Thomas Hardy
There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound. (Thomas Hardy)
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened. View quote
Thomas Hardy
Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks... View quote
Thomas Hardy
And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you. View quote
Thomas Hardy