Quotes from The Woodlanders

Thomas Hardy ·  420 pages

Rating: (12.4K votes)


“He Looked and smelt like Autumn's very brother, his face being sunburnt to wheat-colour, his eyes blue as corn-flowers, his sleeves and leggings dyed with fruit-stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him the sweet atmosphere of cider which at its first return each season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among the orchards.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“...Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I couldn't forget your voice!'
'For how long?'
'O - ever so long. Days and days.'
'Days and days! Only days and days? O, the heart of a man! Days and days!'
'But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not a full-blown love - it was the merest bud - red, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion in embryo. It never returned.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all!”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“For the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such quality as to bear division and transference. He had indeed once declared, though not to her, that on one occasion he had noticed himself to be possessed by five distinct infatuations at the same time. If this were true, his differed from the highest affection as the lower orders of the animal world differ from advanced organisms, partition causing not death but a multiplied existence.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders



“She looked towards the western sky, which was now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were cast”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“She saw nothing of Winterborne during he days of her recovery: and perhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue than it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specks and flaws inseparable from concrete humanity”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of what is with what might be, probably accounts for this.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“She showed that oblique-mannered softness which is perhaps more frequent in women of darker complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs. Charmond’s was; women who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak to them, who inveigle rather than prompt, and take advantage of currents rather than steer.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“Her face had the usual fulness of expression which is developed by a life of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude continuously beat like waves upon a countenance they seem to wear away its mobile power ; but in the still water of privacy every feeling and sentiment unfolds in visible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a printed word by an intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, but the necessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forced the provisional curves of her childhood's face to a premature finality.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders



“It often happens that in situations of unrestraint, where there is no thought of the eye of criticism, real feeling glides into a mode of manifestation not easily distinguishable from rodomontade. A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth, with the evil consequence, if perceived, that the substance is estimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“She could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as clearly as he could state his opinion, even though she had skill in speech, and her father had none.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“On older trees still than these huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was deformed....the taper was interrupted..and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“The petulance that relatives show towards each other is in truth directed against that intangible Causality which has shaped the situation no less for the offenders than the offended, but is too elusive to be discerned and cornered by poor humanity in irritated mood.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“Why - what the name - began her father. I thought you went out to get the parsley!”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders



“-Ahora, mi amor- murmuró-, eres mío y sólo mío porque ella al fin se ha olvidado de ti, a pesar de que murieras por ella. Pero cada vez que yo me levante pensaré en ti y cada vez que me vaya a dormir volveré a pensar en ti.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


“Anche tra gli individui più soggetti agli sbalzi d'umore, l'inclinazione a rincuorarsi appare più forte di quella a deprimersi; e il peso specifico dell'anima invariabilmente si conferma inferiore rispetto a quello del mare di angosce in cui essa è precipitata.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from The Woodlanders


About the author

Thomas Hardy
Born place: in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England, The United Kingdom
Born date June 2, 1840
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“You can't always wait for fate, you have to step in.”
― Paige Toon, quote from Chasing Daisy


“There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.”
― Megan Abbott, quote from Dare Me


“But I should be the one to check! It’s my house, and you shouldn’t have to do it just because you’re the man.” He cast her a withering glance that was probably lost in the darkness. “Burn a bra if you want, but don’t be ridiculous!” “Reece!” “What?” “Be careful!”
― Pamela Clare, quote from Extreme Exposure


“The firepower uncovered in March 2005 in Sant’Anastasia, a town at the foot of Vesuvius, was
stunning. The discovery came about partly by chance, and partly by the lack of discipline of the arms
traffickers: customers and drivers started fighting on the street because they couldn’t agree on the
price. When the carabinieri arrived, they removed the interior panels of the truck parked near the
brawl, discovering one of the largest mobile depots they had ever seen. Uzis with four magazines,
seven clips, and 112 380-caliber bullets, Russian and Czech machine guns able to fire 950 shots a
minute. (Nine hundred fifty shots a minute was the firing power of American helicopters in Vietnam.)
Weapons for ripping apart tanks and entire divisions of men, not for Camorra family fights on the
slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Almost new, well-oiled, rifle numbers still intact, just in from Kraków.”
― Roberto Saviano, quote from Gomorrah


“I'm telling you, Ivy, this is the best thing to happen to her since that boy band she liked got run over by a pack of migrating deer. Look how relaxed she is. Better than a spa day.”
― Kim Harrison, quote from The Undead Pool


Interesting books

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service
(5.8K)
Mossad: The Greatest...
by Michael Bar-Zohar
Air Bound
(5.2K)
Air Bound
by Christine Feehan
The Dialogue of Saint Catherine of Siena
(456)
The Dialogue of Sain...
by Catherine of Siena
Forever with Me
(13.4K)
Forever with Me
by Kristen Proby
Shadow and Claw
(13.6K)
Shadow and Claw
by Gene Wolfe
The Guide
(7.1K)
The Guide
by R.K. Narayan

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.