Top 83 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Life & Nature (LOVE)

Top 10 Most Famous Thomas Hardy Quotes (BEST)

“Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child’s play.”
Thomas Hardy

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. — **Time** changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by **change**.

Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened. — Though a good deal is too strange to be **believed**, nothing is too strange to have happened.

Women are attracted to silent men. They believe they are listening. — Women are attracted to silent men. They **believe** they are **listening**.

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

“With all, the beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they elude pursuit; but with some natures utter elusion is the one special event which will make a passing love permanent for ever.”
Thomas Hardy

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

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art. — **Poetry** is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.

20 Thought-Provoking Thomas Hardy Quotes

“Well: what we gain by science is, after all, sadness, as the Preacher saith. The more we know of the laws and nature of the Universe the more ghastly a business we perceive it all to be — and the non-necessity of it.”
Thomas Hardy

Fear is the mother of foresight. — **Fear** is the **mother** of foresight.

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there. — There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn’t there.

“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

If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed. — If an offense come out of the **truth**, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to. — A man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.

“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

I want to question my belief, so that what is left after I have questioned it, will be even stronger.

The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.

War makes good history but peace is poor reading. — War makes good history but **peace** is poor **reading**.

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity. — Everybody is so **talented** nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech.

So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope. — So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some **dream**, some affection, some **hobby**, or at least some remote and distant **hope**.

It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness. — It is rarely that the pleasures of the **imagination** will compensate for the pain of **sleeplessness**.

Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. — Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every **successful** man is more or less a selfish man.

Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity. — **Patience**, that blending of moral **courage** with physical timidity.

It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity. — It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the **humanity**.

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

7 Profound Thomas Hardy Quotes About Life

“We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all.”
Thomas Hardy

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes. — The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate **fulfillment** of that hope never entirely removes.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length. — Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the **experience** than to its actual length.

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

I won't be a slave to the past. I'll love where I choose. — I won’t be a slave to the past. I’ll love where I choose.

9 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Love

“She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.”
Thomas Hardy

Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. — Love is a possible **strength** in an actual weakness.

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. — 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.

“You have never loved me as I love you–never–never! Yours is not a passionate heart, Your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite, not a woman!”
Thomas Hardy

See what deceits love sows in honest minds! — See what deceits love sows in **honest** minds!

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

“To be loved to madness–such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.”
Thomas Hardy

Well, these sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in. — Well, these sad and hopeless **obstacles** are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that **Fate** loves to indulge in.

“You overrate my capacity of love. I don’t posses 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

11 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Women

“Some women’s love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can’t give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop’s license to receive it.”
Thomas Hardy

A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.

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

“I know women are taught by other women that they must never admit the full truth to a man. But the highest form of affection is based on full sincerity on both sides. Not being men, these women don’t know that in looking back on those he has had tender relations with, a man’s heart returns closest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The better class of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging and parrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis attends the woman who plays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt for her that, sooner or later, her old admirers feel; under which they allow her to go unlamented to her grave.”
Thomas Hardy

Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?

Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?

Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks.

A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly.

The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.

Women accept their destiny more readily than men. — Women accept their **destiny** more readily than men.

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. — 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.

3 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Marriage

“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.”
Thomas Hardy

Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. — Well, what I mean is that I shouldn’t mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband.

If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do. If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.

2 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Beauty

The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed. — The beauty or ugliness of a **character** lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.

Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.

2 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Nature

To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.

The sky was clear - remarkably clear - and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. — The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

2 Thomas Hardy Quotes on Happiness

“There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness.”
Thomas Hardy

Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

17 Thomas Hardy Quotes That Will Make You Think

“She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought.”
Thomas Hardy