Thomas Hardy: Trending quotes (page 8)

“She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 1

Chance , Time

“Moreover she, and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection and love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring, "Whither does this new current tend to carry me? What does it mean to my future? How does it stand towards my past?"”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Third: The Rally, ch. XX
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

Love , Past , Future

“Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays, ch. XLIII
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

Courage , Patience

“I have seldom known a man cunning with his brush who was not simple with his tongue; or, indeed, any skill in particular that was not allied to general stupidity.”

Thomas Hardy book The Hand of Ethelberta

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), ch. 20

Stupidity

“We two kept house, the Past and I,
The Past and I;
I tended while it hovered nigh,
Leaving me never alone.”

Thomas Hardy

" The Ghost of the Past http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Thomas_Hardy/2715", lines 1-4, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Past , Housing

“Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. I, ch. 1
The Return of the Native (1878)

“When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things?"”

Thomas Hardy

" Afterwards http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Hardy/Afterwards.htm", lines 1-4, from Moments of Vision (1917)

“Aggressive Fancy working spells
Upon a mind o’erwrought.”

Thomas Hardy The Dynasts

Pt. I, sc. vi, Napoleon
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

“Good, but not religious-good.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), ch. 2

“Above the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial globe.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. I, ch. 2
The Return of the Native (1878)

“If all hearts were open and all desires known — as they would be if people showed their souls — how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!”

Thomas Hardy

Diary entry (18 August 1908), quoted in The Later Years of Thomas Hardy (1930), by Florence Emily Hardy, ch. 10, p. 133

Heartbreaking , People , Soul , Heart

“When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.”

Thomas Hardy

" Between Us Now, http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/between-us-now/" lines 21-24, from Poems of the Past and Present (1901)

Faith , Falseness

“That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement Day.”

Thomas Hardy

" Channel Firing http://www.love-poems.me.uk/hardy_channel_firing.htm" (1914), lines 1-4, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Night

“In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. I, ch. 1
The Return of the Native (1878)

Lying , Understanding , Time

“If you are cheerful, and wish to remain so, leave the study of astronomy alone. Of all the sciences, it alone deserves the character of the terrible.”

Thomas Hardy book Two on a Tower

Two on a Tower (1882), vol 1, ch. 4 (Swithin St Cleeve speaking to Viviette Constantine)

Study , Science

“Whence comes solace? Not from seeing,
What is doing, suffering, being;
Not from noting Life’s conditions,
Not from heeding Time’s monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream
And in gazing at the Gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.”

Thomas Hardy

" On a Fine Morning http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Thomas_Hardy/16443" (1899), lines 1-7, from Poems of the Past and Present (1901)

Life , Dreams , Suffering , Time

“Twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the First: The Maiden, ch. I
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

“Why doth IT so and so, and ever so,
This viewless, voiceless Turner of the Wheel?”

Thomas Hardy The Dynasts

Pt. I, forescene, Spirit of the Pities
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

“Considering his position he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent Power.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Third: The Rally, ch. XVIII
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

“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.”

Thomas Hardy

Heredity http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1007/, lines 1-6, from Moments of Vision (1917)

Family , Time