857 Quotes by Thomas Hardy

Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came.

I forgot the defective can be more than the whole.

And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will.

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?

Mrs. d’Urberville was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond.

I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability.

That man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.

His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of coyness.

The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment.