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Thomas Hardy Quotes
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Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd , The Mayor of Casterbridge , Tess of the d'Urbervilles , and Jude the Obscure . During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Wikipedia  

✵ 2. June 1840 – 11. January 1928
Thomas Hardy photo
Thomas Hardy: 171   quotes 23   likes

Thomas Hardy Quotes

“The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not.”

Thomas Hardy

" God-Forgotten http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Thomas_Hardy/16398", lines 4-8, from Poems of the Past and Present (1901)

World , Sadness , Fashion

“William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!”

Thomas Hardy

" Friends Beyond http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Thomas_Hardy/16393", lines 1-3, from Wessex Poems (1898)

Lie

“I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.”

Thomas Hardy

" The Darkling Thrush http://www.poetry-online.org/hardy_the_darkling_thrush.htm" (1900), lines 1-8, from Poems of the Past and Present (1901)

Winter

“Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.”

Thomas Hardy book The Hand of Ethelberta

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), ch. 9

Success

“Here by the baring bough
Raking up leaves,
Often I ponder how
Springtime deceives,—
I, an old woman now,
Raking up leaves.”

Thomas Hardy

" Autumn in King's Hintock Park http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/poems/hardy2.html" (1901), lines 1-6, from Time's Laughingstocks (1909)

“Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it seems that even I be in Somebody's hand!”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 41

“How can I pray for you," she said, "when I am forbidden to believe that the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my account?”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

phase the Sixth: The Convert, ch. XLVI
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

World

“But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum — which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the departure of zest for doing — stood in the way of all that.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 44

Wisdom , God , Way , Departure

“To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.”

Thomas Hardy

Statement (5 August 1888), as quoted in The life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1928 (1962) by Florence Emily Hardy

Beauty

“When that half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

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

Life , Change

“And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!"”

Thomas Hardy

And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.</p>
"The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the Titanic), lines 22-33

History

“It is commonly said that no man was ever converted by argument, but there is a single one which will make any Laodicean in England, let him be once love-sick, wear prayer-books and become a zealous Episcopalian – the argument that his sweetheart can be seen from his pew.”

Thomas Hardy

Desperate Remedies (1871), vol. 2, ch. 4

Love , Books

“And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 18

Way

“Work hard and be poor, do nothing and get more.”

Thomas Hardy book The Hand of Ethelberta

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), ch. 1

“Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a lifelong comradeship tolerable.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Pt. I, ch. XI
Jude the Obscure (1895)

Error , Feeling

“The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

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

Sleep , Appearance

“The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.”

Thomas Hardy

<p>This quote can be traced to two authors, in books published within the same year:</p><p>1) Rev. Edward John Hardy, known as E.J. Hardy (1849-1920), How to Be Happy Though Civil: A Book on Manners (New York, Scribners, 1909), ch. VI: A Christian Gentleman;
2) John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, Peace and Happiness (Macmillan, 1909), ch. XV: Religion</p>
Misattributed

Religion

“Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.”

Thomas Hardy

" During Wind and Rain http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/96.html", lines 27-28, from Moments of Vision (1917)

“The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.”

Thomas Hardy

Quoted in The Later Years of Thomas Hardy (1930), by Florence Emily Hardy, ch. 17, p. 212

Men , Age , Dependency , Personality

“How bewitched I was! How could there be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. V, ch. 3
The Return of the Native (1878)

“Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.”

Thomas Hardy

Source: " The Voice http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/thomas_hardy/the_voice.html" (1912), lines 1-4, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Change

“Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.”

Thomas Hardy book The Hand of Ethelberta

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), ch. 2

“The heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason; when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and round each other, and from a distance appear to be one.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

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

Star , Light , Appearance , Change

“She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind — or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Second: Maiden No More, ch. XIII
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

World , Fear , Idea

“Ah," she said to herself, "want of an object to live for—that's all is the matter with me!”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. II, ch. 4
The Return of the Native (1878)

“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)

“See what deceits love sows in honest minds!”

Thomas Hardy book Two on a Tower

Two on a Tower (1882), vol 2, ch. 1 (Viviette Constantine speaking to Swithin St Cleeve)

Love

“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

“This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I.”

Thomas Hardy

" Weathers http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Thomas_Hardy/2735, lines 10-11, from Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922)

Weather

“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. And that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. And that nobody is wished to see my dead body. And that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. And that no flours be planted on my grave. And that no man remember me.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 45 (Henchard's will)

Death , Dead

“Ere systemed suns were globed and lit
The slaughters of the race were writ.”

Thomas Hardy The Dynasts

Pt. II, sc. v, Semichorus I
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

Sun

“To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction — every kind of evidence in the logician's list — have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 2

People , Fear , Memory , Night