Quotes from book
Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.

“I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“All romances end at marriage.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“He wished she knew his impressions, but he would as soon as thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibles of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 51

“It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“But some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out
of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a
short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“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.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you, and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you will never know.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be — and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 4 (Gabriel Oak, proposing to Bathsheba Everdene)

“They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Variant: They spoke very little of their mutual feelings: pretty phrases and warm attentions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.
Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied sould of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech. In the same way to say a little is often to tell more than to say.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman’s moments.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“I have felt lately, more and more, that my present way of living is bad in every respect.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

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