857 Quotes by Thomas Hardy

She dismissed the past – trod upon it and put it out, as one treads on a coal that is smouldering and dangerous.

Gabriel’s malignant star was assuredly setting fast.

My dear Sue, – Of course I wish you joy! And also of course I will give you away. What I suggest is that, as you have no house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend’s, but from mine. It would be more proper, I think, since I am, as you say, the person nearest related to you in this part of the world. I don’t see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way? Surely you care a bit about me still! – Ever your affectionate, Jude.

Decisive action is seen by appreciative minds to be frequently objectless, and sometimes fatal; but decision, however suicidal, has more charm for a woman than the most unequivocal Fabian success.

Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts.

Ah, if I could only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you to show pity to your poor lonely one...

Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway weeping – not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for life.

Clare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and furtive, as though associated with crime. The fireplace confronted him with its extinct embers; the spread supper-table, whereon stood the two full glasses of untasted wine, now flat and filmy; her vacated seat and his own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of not being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry what was to be done?

I want something that makes people strong and energetic for the present, that borrows the strength of to-morrow for use to-day – leaving to-morrow without any at all for that matter; or even that would take all life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me to get home again now.