Are you a fan of literature that delivers soul-stirring emotions and unforgettable moments of melancholy? Well then, it's time to dive deep into the atmospheric world of Thomas Hardy. Renowned for his profoundly emotive narratives, Hardy's prose transcends time and his novels, such as ‘Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and ‘Far from the Madding Crowd', have ensnared readers' hearts for generations. Yet, beyond his literary accomplishments, Hardy's quotes stand as poignant vignettes of his world-view, embodying the essence of his melancholic artistry. Welcome to our curated list of “50 Melancholic Thomas Hardy Quotes,” a tribute to this master of poignant storytelling.
Consider the timeless story of Hardy's real-life romance with his first wife, Emma Gifford. Their love affair began as the stuff of novels, filled with passion and promise. But over time, the relationship transformed into a source of sorrow and estrangement, inspiring Hardy's most melancholic poetry and prose. This melancholy was so profound that even after Emma's death, Hardy's regretful love for her continued to influence his work. Among the “Thomas Hardy Quotes” that you'll discover in our collection, you'll find echoes of this lost love, speaking directly to the universal human experience of sorrow and longing. So, whether you're a seasoned Hardy aficionado or just beginning your journey into his evocative world, prepare for a literary experience that will move you to your core.
The World of Love and Longing
1. “Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.”
2. “The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.”
3. “Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”
4. “Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”
5. “Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.”
6. “And yet to every bad there is a worse.”
7. “To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.”
8. “Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”
9. “A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.”
10. “The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.”
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The Art of Suffering
- “Fear is the mother of foresight.”
- “A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.”
- “A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”
- “So much has been said of the gloom of English poetry, as if it were a defect.”
- “I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on.”
- “Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less.”
- “Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game.”
- “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.”
- “We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colors they are known by.”
- “Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would.”
A Landscape of Emotions
- “Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”
- “A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias.”
- “Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.”
- “Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.”
- “War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.”
- “Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.”
- “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.”
- “I need not so live that other people can write my biography.”
- “My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.”
- “Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother. Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities.
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Tales of the Heart
- “I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.”
- “Character is fate.”
- “That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”
- “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.”
- “If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.”
- “To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.”
- “Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.”
- “It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
- “A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.”
- “There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there.”
A Journey Into The Soul
- “I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.”
- “So much has been said of the gloom of English poetry, as if it were a defect.”
- “Give the enemy not only a road for flight, but also a means of defending it.”
- “I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on.”
- “A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.”
- “Don't you go believing in sayings, Picotee: they are all made by men, for their own advantages. Women who use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.”
- “And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.”
- “Revolution did not necessarily involve squalor and famine. Revolution could but little change in the course of the sun, and the existence of a country without a King and without a privileged class did not seem the impossible of acceptance.”
- “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.”
- “But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.”
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