“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, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“You ride well, but you don't kiss nicely at all.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often then not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to remain in obscurity.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is afterwards recalled to his mind's eye as she appeared in one particular scene, which seems ordained to be her special medium of manifestation throughout all the pages of his memory.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“People who have always gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of going right as those do who have gone wrong.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways—not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“How would you draw the line between women with something and women with nothing in them?”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have deliberately chosen as a friend—or even for one of a group of a dozen friends—he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and even heart, as a makeshift.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“Better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is usually recalled to his mind's eye as she appeared in one particular scene, which seems ordained to be her special form of manifestation throughout the pages of his memory. As”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“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.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“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.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“for unfortunately the person most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from an attack of gout. After finishing her household supervision Elfride became restless, and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-door.
'Come in!' was always answered in a heart out-of-door voice from the inside.
'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf.
'Afraid not - eh-h-h! - very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipper - piph-ph-ph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get up till tomorrow.'
'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I should do, papa.'
'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.'
'I should hardly think he would come today.'
'Why?'
'Because the wind blows so.'
'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly!... If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!'
'Must he have dinner?'
'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.'
'Tea, then?'
'Not substantial enough.'
'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and things of that kind.'
'Yes, high tea.'
'Must I pour out his tea, papa?'
'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.'
'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, and not anybody to introduce us?'
'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been travelling ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and air courtesies tonight. He wants food and shelter, and you must see that he has it, simply because I am suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing so dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head from reading so many of those novels.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“Per quanto contraddittorio possa sembrare, non c’è nulla di più vero che chi ha sempre fatto la scelta giusta non sa nemmeno la metà sulla natura e i modi di operare la scelta giusta, di chi ha fatto le scelte sbagliate.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“È senza dubbio una disgrazia per un uomo che deve procurarsi da vivere, nascere con una natura realmente nobile. Un animo elevato condurrà un uomo all’ospizio di mendicità.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
Thomas Hardy
Born place: in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England, The United Kingdom
Born date June 2, 1840
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