857 Quotes by Thomas Hardy

I am certain one ought to be allowed to undo what one has done so ignorantly ! I daresay it happens to lots of women; only they submit, and I kick... When people of a later age look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the times that we have the unhappiness to live in, what will they say!

Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn’t it Tess?

Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny side.

Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she always allowed her interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with hers.

Clare knew that she loved him – every curve of her form showed that – but he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion, its single-mindedness, its meekness; what long-suffering it guaranteed, what honesty, what endurance, what good faith.

Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know.” He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. “O, Angel – I fear that means no!” said she, with a suppressed sob. “And I wanted so to see you again – so much, so much! What – not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?

You overrate my capacity of love. I don’t posess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me.

People go on marrying because they can’t resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month’s pleasure with a life’s discomfort.

Tess was the merest stray phenomenon to Angel Clare as yet – a rosy, warming apparition which had only just acquired the attribute of persistence in his consciousness.