857 Quotes by Thomas Hardy

Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of preparation—sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge.

The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of what is with what might be, probably accounts for this.

Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can.

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

The purpose of a chronicler of moods and deeds does not require him to express his personal views upon the grave controversy above given.

...a little calf, about a day old, looking idiotically at the two women, which showed that it had not long been accustomed to the phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning to the lantern, which it mistook for the moon, inherited instinct having as yet had little time for correction by experience.

You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always

looking-glasses for the pretty, and lying books for the wicked.

The yard was a little centre of regeneration. Here, with keen edges and smooth curves, were forms in the exact likeness of those he had seen abraded and time-eaten on the walls. These were the ideas in modern prose which the lichened colleges presented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have been called prose when they were new. They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the smallest building; how impossible to most men.